Solicitor failed to spot planning permission

Thrugelmir

gladysrocker wrote: »

the fact that it wasn't overlooked and was in a semi rural position, both of which are no longer going to be the case.

And were never likely to be. Unless the adjoining land was designated common ground of some form. Then development was always on the cards. The UK needs homes.

phoebe1989seb

Brenny wrote: »

As others have said a search only covers the property being bought. There is an additional question that could be asked but that would be down to your son asking solicitor. If I look at a house I ALWAYS search the council website. In this way I found a proposed new estate of affordable housing a field away from my dream property. ��

Similar thing happened to us when we were buying a new rural house in 2011. We were buying outside of our area - 200 miles away from the house we were selling - so were unable to do several drive-by recces.....

On our second viewing (and after our offer had been accepted) we happened to notice that the part of the field to the rear of the property and country gastro pub car park that also ran behind the 200+ year old period house were being attacked by bulldozers.

We questioned the vendor and her EA who both denied any knowledge of what was going on. We then drove to the nearest town where the EA office was located and asked the manager if he knew what was being built. He informed us it was two small bungalows - single storey as the name suggests.

On arriving home we checked the planning portal and discovered it was actually two five bed, two storey detached executive homes that would abut *our* rear garden wall and obscure the views of open countryside - part of our reason for selecting the house as our next home......we pulled out of the purchase forthwith, more on principal that the vendor had withheld the truth from us......

The OP's son has my sympathy and I'd be utterly peed off it were me

JimmyTheWig

neneromanova wrote: »

What would happen then, if it was found out that the sellers lied about knowing about planning permission? It's not like the sale of the houses would revert at all, so what would happen? and what could they ask for?

Genuine question

Compensation of the difference between value with no known planning permission and value with known planning permission, I would guess.

Whoever determines what that value is may take into account, as some posters have pointed out, that building on that land was somewhat inevitable at some point. And so the difference in value might not be as great as the OP's son would like.

DaftyDuck

Given that the OP has stated that planning permission was applied for more than once, the likelihood from the outset was that something would be built on the land in the near future.

To purchase the property on the basis that nothing would get built would strike me as extremely unwise. I can't see much compensation - were it to be sought - being available on that basis.

Davesnave

Most people would like to overlook fields and open spaces, but almost the only way to be sure of doing that throughout one's ownership, is to own the field as well.

I inherited a bungalow sited beside a field which became a building site. I was sure that the 5 bedroom house they were erecting next door would severely impact my property and reduce its value before I could hope to renovate and sell.

I was wrong. Some properties in that road were negatively impacted, but others, like mine, weren't affected at all. It could be argued that our security was actually much improved, as the field was previously visited by undesirables, and not just rats.

I sold the bungalow shortly after the builders finished the 'monster' next door. No one viewing even mentioned it.

My advice is for your son to wait and see. The chance of any compensation is arguable, but there are worse things than having neighbours. His house may yet prove to be a perfectly sound initial buy.

googler

So the buyer, of their own volition, found more than one planning application for the site on the council's website, and, by some means still unknown, someone has either got permission for, or started work without permission on, the site, without this being reflected on the council's website.

I'm struggling to see why the buyer's solicitor should share any blame in all of this. What should they have found that the buyer didn't find on their own?