indemnity insurance con

magpiecottage

As far as planning permission is concerned, I believe (your Solicitor would know) that a council would be forced to grant PP retrospectively if you can prove it has been there for more than four years, so your own survey from when you bought it may be sufficient.

Spiderham

Quentin wrote: »

A retrospective planning application would cost considerably more than the indemnity policy - (not to mention the time it would take!)

What he said, the only way to prove it. That's why they offer the insurance policies as it is a profit opportunity for the insurers if they make it cheap enough to make planning permission uneconomical.

That is why the policies are at the price they are, they know the risk is minuscule so it's admin costs plus a bit for profit.

As I said it's a pain but on the bright side (if you can try to view it that way) is that it's a sight cheaper than retrospective planning permission.

janmoir

thanks for all the replies but I still don't understand why the solicitor is forcing us to buy lack of planning permission indemnity insurance for an extension that never needed planing permission in the first place. The total size of the extension is 14 cubic metres. The current guidelines say that if an extension is less than 50 cubic metres it doesn't need permission. It really does seem like a quick money making scheme.

Quentin

You can of course refuse to fall in with this.

But expect they might decide to withdraw from the deal if you do!

Sally_A

We had to pay about £135 I think for restrictive covenant insurance when selling ours.

1) for the extension between kitchen and old coal house that was done before we moved in 1984.
2) as we had double glazing fitted without a Fenstra certificate (ye gods, may have inadvertently put DG in a 1968 ex LA house, which could be grade 1 listed)!

It was worth it to chivvy the sale along, as sellers offered within 2% of our asking price - not something to be sniffed at in the current market.