Landscaping Strip - Planning permission

Crixx316

Good Evening,

I'm not sure if I'm in the right forum, or if you can help with advice, but here goes....

We recently purchased a new build home, and our house backs onto the gardens of homes that have been around for 10 years or so.

We had 5 rows of small trees at the back of our garden, which we were advised was a buffer for the homeowners at the back which was fair enough. We were told that we had to keep this for a year, and then we could do what we wanted with it. Everyone on the street was advised our site manager that it was a year)

Today, we received a letter from our council reminding us (everyone on the street got one) that we should be keeping this landscaping strip for 5 years. This is obviously contrary to what we were told from our site manager (who is not employed by the home builders anymore)

At the end of the letter from our council, it mentions that we might have had a restrictive covenant on our deeds which refers to only a two year period, but it is infact 5 years as per condition 5 of the planning permission.

My questions are these:

1) If our deeds only state 2 years, then can the council make us stick to 5 years?

2) Could we take legal action against our home builders for "mis-selling" as we now have to maintain this stip for an extra 4 years?
This obviously incurs an extra cost, plus nobody on our street wants 5 meters of our garden (Approximately 1/3) wasted on trees. They look awful as it's hard to maintain the ground inbetween them.

Please accept my apologies for the long post, and I appreciate anyone who has made it this far.

I'm just seeing if people have any advice here while I wait for our home builder to come back to us.

Thanks for any help with this, as we're not entirely sure where we stand.

planning_officer

Crixx316 wrote: »

My questions are these:

1) If our deeds only state 2 years, then can the council make us stick to 5 years?

2) Could we take legal action against our home builders for "mis-selling" as we now have to maintain this stip for an extra 4 years?
This obviously incurs an extra cost, plus nobody on our street wants 5 meters of our garden (Approximately 1/3) wasted on trees. They look awful as it's hard to maintain the ground inbetween them.

Answer to Q1 - Yes. Landscaping conditions on planning permissions are always 5 years. The deeds and planning conditions are entirely separate - you have to comply with both, irrespective if they are for diffferent time periods.

Q2 - not my area of expertise I'm afraid. But I doubt whether you could - planning documents are public and you could have inspected it (it's probably on your Council's website). Your conveyancing solicitor could have picked it up, but it's such a standard condition on new developments that they probably wouldn't bother advising you of it. Besides, you only have to keep the trees living - not go over the top with looking after it. In any event, trees usually enhance developments and it would be highly unusual for a Council to approve poor landscaping details.

cyclonebri1

Crixx316 wrote: »

We had 5 rows of small trees at the back of our garden, which we were advised was a buffer for the homeowners at the back which was fair enough.
nobody on our street wants 5 meters of our garden (Approximately 1/3) wasted on trees. They look awful as it's hard to maintain the ground inbetween them.

But you can bet your bottom dollar that you people who back onto you do ;)

Sorry, not meaning to condemn you, just looking at it from the other aspect.

There's an old adage regarding relating to trees, goes like this;

"He that plants trees thinks of others than himself"

Now I understand the true meaning of that but can't help adding

", unless they are Leylandiis" :D:D

Hope they are'nt.;)