Lack of planning permission

jcbl

Hi

Grateful for advice.

Should be on the verge of exchanging on our first house. At a late stage our solicitor has spotted a lack of planning permission for a small garden wall - not a permitted development. It's 2ft high, in keeping with the local area and completely innocuous. Built longer than 12 months ago.

I know that they are obliged to highlight and attempt to resolve these things but I am getting a little frustrated. The insurance policy will in my view cost more than replacing the wall if enforcement took place and is therefore uneconomic. Am I missing a risk here?

david29dpo

If you are happy with the situation (it would not bother me) tell your solicitor to go ahead with exchange.

Richard_Webster

A 2' high garden wall would normally be permitted development so there must be an express planning condition requiring an open plan layout. Breach of such a condition would not become immune from enforcement until 10 years have elapsed.

It may well be that nothing will happen as a result - the Council may have more serious things to concern itself with.

If you are getting a mortgage your solicitor will have to protect your lender's position. i agree that the cost of demolishing the wall should not be great if it comes to it - but you will have to see if your solicitor feels he needs to report it to the lender.

As to indemnity policies, the seller presumably erected the wall and didn't check the planning situation so he should be the one paying for any indemnity policy.

goldbyron

An indemnity policy as Richard pointed out would resolve this issue quickly and cheaply. Ask the seller to cover this cost and you should then be able to proceed to exchange.

Hammyman

Ignore it, move on. Our new house has a 30ft garage that has no building regs or PP. Its extremely well built and to a high quality (previous owner was a precision engineer and did jobs on house to equally meticulous measure). Google Earth photos from May 2007 show it and unless someone complains, I doubt anyone would be interested and if they are, I can prove its been there more than 4 years.

SailorSam

We're probably luckier living here than some other parts of the world when we build onto our homes.
On Newsnight last night they were doing a spot from China, the last time they visited this small village was 4yrs ago were life was unchanged for hundreds of years, it was now a large city and the original residents were shown trying to adjust. To do any work you needed to bribe the right people and they showed people who had been visited in the middle of the night by a gang of men with jack hammers who just destroyed their property, 'cos they hadn't paid up.

jcbl

Thanks all, seller covered indemnity and we exchanged