Retrospective Planning

Raxybear

Money saving tip! Just build what you like then apply for retrospective planning if you get caught that is! Anyone else experience neighbours knowingly building without planning permission? Even lying on applications to get what they want. When I'm paying thousands doing it all by the book. Why am I being penalised for doing things right? Discuss.......

macman

Because retrospective PP isn't guaranteed to be granted. They don't look on such an application more 'leniently' just because it has already been built.You then face the possibility of paying for it to be built and-then taken down again.
There are inevitably some people who will take this risk.

Raxybear

Understood however in our conservation village the Council didn't even batter an eye lid!

southcoastrgi

new build house up the rd from me, got up to roof height, it was then found out the front of the house was 2' too close to the rd, council made them completely tear down the house, the site was left in a pile of rubble for 10 yrs because the owner couldn't afford to re-build

leveller2911

southcoastrgi wrote: »

new build house up the rd from me, got up to roof height, it was then found out the front of the house was 2' too close to the rd, council made them completely tear down the house, the site was left in a pile of rubble for 10 yrs because the owner couldn't afford to re-build

Flip side is up the road from me a couple who own the house have a daughter/son in law who have lived in the detached garage for about 8 years and have now gone through retrospective planning application to make the double garage their home and extend it. "Certificate of Lawful residency" or similar. Very underhanded but they have got away with it. The garage was worth around £12k and now worth around £220k.... f***ing disgrace.It was Rother District Council members who were incompetant, as usual.

Its very,very,very rare for Retrospective planning applications to be denied, in fact I only know of 2 in my local area and that was because a guy replaced his timber windows with Upvc in a conservation area and the other was a chap who bought a 6 bedroom house and converted it to a HMO without consent.

Its a cheats charter and it encourages people to break the rules knowing it will more than likely be approved if they are found out.. Shocking state of affairs IMO.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realise that if you want to carry out alterations/extend a property you may need planning permission. Its a case of people rooking the system and getting away with it.

I even know of a car repair garage that was demolished ,application went in for 5 houses.It was refused because they didn't try and sell the garage as a "going concern" (which is part of any planning application being approved). Now move on 4 years and there are 5 houses on the site.

There was a loss of 5 jobs in a rural area from this site all because of short sighted greed.

This was all carried out through Ashford Borough Council (Kent), lots of plain brown envelopes with various amounts of cash being handed over (allegedly).

planning_officer

leveller2911 wrote: »

Flip side is up the road from me a couple who own the house have a daughter/son in law who have lived in the detached garage for about 8 years and have now gone through retrospective planning application to make the double garage their home and extend it. "Certificate of Lawful residency" or similar. Very underhanded but they have got away with it. The garage was worth around £12k and now worth around £220k.... f***ing disgrace.It was Rother District Council members who were incompetant, as usual.

A building becomes lawful as a dwelling if it has been lived in for four years - so there doesn't seem much underhand with this, unless you're suggesting the Council knew someone was living there during the four year period and did nothing about it? If no local residents complained to the Council during the four year period, I'm not sure how the Council was supposed to find out about it?

leveller2911 wrote: »

Its very,very,very rare for Retrospective planning applications to be denied, in fact I only know of 2 in my local area... Its a cheats charter and it encourages people to break the rules knowing it will more than likely be approved if they are found out.. Shocking state of affairs IMO.

It's a risk for someone to build something without planning permission, however it is not an offence to do so. As a professional, I deal with lots of retrospective applications and we look at them absolutely no differently to as if they haven't been built. I don't like it when people try it on and build something without applying, in the hope nobody will find out. However, when we assess it, if it would have been granted permission anyway, then it's granted retrospective planning permission. If not, it's refused. Simple as that.

At my authority, there have been countless developments that have had to be demolished - from sheds to new houses. It's mostly smaller developments, as most people who build something larger will apply properly, as it's a huge risk not to. We serve enforcement notices, and then either the owner demolishes it or we send in a contractor to do it and recover the cost from the owner. From a personal viewpoint, I would prefer to refuse something when someone has tried it on, just to teach them a lesson - so I scrutinise an application very closely to see if it is worthy of refusal!

leveller2911 wrote: »

I even know of a car repair garage that was demolished ,application went in for 5 houses.It was refused because they didn't try and sell the garage as a "going concern" (which is part of any planning application being approved). Now move on 4 years and there are 5 houses on the site..

It may very well be that local planning policies have changed - our employment land policies have relaxed over the past 2 or 3 years, as the need for housing outweighs the retention of every single employment site. Things do change, so it's not impossible for something to be refused and then be granted a few years later. However, if that was my authority, we would have insisted he marketed the land as employment land for sale, before considering housing!

leveller2911

planning_officer wrote: »

A building becomes lawful as a dwelling if it has been lived in for four years -
so there doesn't seem much underhand with this, unless you're suggesting the
Council knew someone was living there during the four year period and did
nothing about it?

Many thanks for taking the time to reply.

It was underhanded by the owners firstly because they knew the rules and how to circumnavigate them. The council were notified and no action was taken.The council have also been notifid of people living in commercial buildings (workshops B1 use) which have no PP for residancy.They have been notified 3 times via filling out the online form on the councils website and a notification comes up saying "thankyou for your information and the Council will endevour to investigate the claim within 21 days" or so and still no action has been taken.

It's a risk for someone to build something without planning permission, however
it is not an offence to do so. As a professional, I deal with lots of
retrospective applications and we look at them absolutely no differently to as
if they haven't been built. I don't like it when people try it on and build
something without applying, in the hope nobody will find out. However, when we
assess it, if it would have been granted permission anyway, then it's granted
retrospective planning permission. If not, it's refused. Simple as that.

There is no excuse for people not to look into whether or not the proposed work requires PP and if they build,renovate etc without PP they should be fined heavily at the very least even if the work has already been carried out. Local Authorities planning dept are under ever increasing pressure and when people do the right thing and apply for PP they are usually kept waiting for months because of the backlogs whereas people who don't just build,renovate etc and they don't have to wait until after the work has been done and then apply whilst already having had the work completed, I agree it is a risk but in the majority of cases no action is taken.

It doesn't seem like everyone is treated equelly. I deal with Rother District Council on a regular basis and I see this going on all the time.Where is the incentive do do things correctly?.I know of a case locally of someone who replaced all of their wooden windows with Upvc which required PP because it is in a Conservation area and they were told to take them out and replace with wooden windows, this was over 2 years ago and still no change so even when they have been found to have broken the rules nothing changes.

From a personal viewpoint, I would prefer to refuse something when someone has
tried it on, just to teach them a lesson - so I scrutinise an application very
closely to see if it is worthy of refusal!

Trouble is I don't see this happening locally and I'm very surprised Local Authorities haven't seen the revenue raising oppotunity in this and fine these people who abuse the system.

It may very well be that local planning policies have changed - our employment
land policies have relaxed over the past 2 or 3 years, as the need for housing
outweighs the retention of every single employment site. Things do change, so
it's not impossible for something to be refused and then be granted a few years
later. However, if that was my authority, we would have insisted he marketed
the land as employment land for sale, before considering housing!

Fair point and I think we get mixed messages from Councils/Government in that on the one hand they want to retain rural employment and in the next breathe change the rules that helped keep rural business sites active. A good friend of mine was struggling with running his rural garage (no petrl just MOT work). He put in for planning for 3 houses and 1 commercial unit ,so retaining the commercial aspect.

He was told that he needed to market the business for sale so he employed a large company to do so.It was advertised in magazines,papers,huge "For sale" board on the fourcourt and even online and the only enquiry he had was from France. The Council (Ashford Borough Council) refused permission on the grounds that he hadn't marketed the business widely enough...Pretty laughable really given that the only enquiry was from France.