Earthship Legal Issues

rash161

I'm interesting in building an Earthship or similar type of building to live in.

I'm just exploring the issues that might be encountered from the government, if they're going to get in the way too much then I'll look at doing it in another country.

I want to buy some land and build an Earthship, I don't like regular houses, I think they're inefficient, look stupid and they don't fit our lifestyle and like most things in this country, houses are probably only still built how they are because "it's how everyone does it" and nobody dares to question anything.

We don't want anything from the government, we're not interested in them or anything that they have to offer, we don't want them to protect us, we don't want them to help us, if we want to live in a building that doesn't meet their misinformed regulations then that's OUR responsibility, at no point in our lives did we ask them to protect us.

Woodland seems cheap in some places and it's easier to keep something like this hidden in a wood than on open land, would they expect us to ask for permission to build this on our own land? Would they want us to comply with their regulations? No employee of the government/council will have permission to be on our land so how could they ever know that we had a building there if they couldn't see it from a road?

I'd be expecting us to need to comply with their regulations for safety and things like that if we wanted to sell it in the future but we don't intend to do that, if we wanted to move on in the future we accept that we'll probably lose the money that went into building the earthship.

Can we avoid this type of thing if the property doesn't have an address?

zeupater

Hi

No matter how you see your responsibilities as a member of society, you still need to live by the rules which society sets itself through government. From the construction of the questions, I'm pretty sure that the answers are already known, else it's an extremely naïve set of views ....

I'd guess that your best option would be to buy some land and look to place a temporary structure on it (http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/), however, this would necessitate a pretty sound reason for having the structure and a reason for it being temporary anyway.

Whatever you may think of the government and the rest of society, you'll need to be involved in some way or other. Simply thinking that "we don't want them to protect us, we don't want them to help us" is almost impossible .... on the day that your woodland catches fire, or you fall ill, or someone steals all of your possessions (including whatever you're using to post), or the kids need education, or benefits/pension are required or .. or .. or .....

Radical ideology is great until you start to think it through to the ultimate conclusions, then it all starts to fall apart ..... looks like whatever you will try to do you'll need to interact with the government & the rest of society in some way, so they will certainly "get in the way ", therefore without considering a hefty set of compromises, it looks like "I'll look at doing it in another country" would be high on the cards, but it'll need to be a relatively undeveloped country or you'll just be in the same boat ....

HTH
Z

Ectophile

There's no way you can opt out of the laws of this country, and both the planning and building regulations are backed by law.

You may be able to build a home without anyone noticing - it has been done before. You then have to be able to go for several years without anybody noticing. Remember there's a lot of aerial and satellite photography these days - just look at Google or Bing maps.

Without an address, you're going to have to use somebody else's address for all your correspondence. And no electricity, gas, phone, water, sewers.

If you can build and live in a home for a sufficiently long time without anybody noticing, then you can claim retrospective approval. But good luck proving how long you've lived there if you've gone out of your way to avoid any evidence that there is anyone living there.

You're going to find the same problems in almost any other developed country. The rules will be different, but they will be there.

rash161

zeupater wrote: »

No matter how you see your responsibilities as a member of society, you still need to live by the rules which society sets itself through government.

Society doesn't actually set its rules, democracy is an illusion, representative democracy is not good enough, it's only a slight improvement over hereditary rule. People just go around in a trance assuming we have real democracy because that's what the TV told them. Anyway, I didn't agree to be a part of it, I'm increasingly seeing that I'm not compatible with the typical lifestyle in this country and that's why one of my options is to get out.

zeupater wrote: »

From the construction of the questions, I'm pretty sure that the answers are already known, else it's an extremely naïve set of views ....

I have an idea, I'm looking for clarification on what is likely to be an issue as well as ways of getting around it all, ultimately looking at whether we want to do this in this country or go to a better country.

zeupater wrote: »

I'd guess that your best option would be to buy some land and look to place a temporary structure on it, however, this would necessitate a pretty sound reason for having the structure and a reason for it being temporary anyway.

That site just shows typical box shaped houses with a sloping roof on top, I don't want that, I don't see why I should be forced to have that.

zeupater wrote: »

Whatever you may think of the government and the rest of society, you'll need to be involved in some way or other. Simply thinking that "we don't want them to protect us, we don't want them to help us" is almost impossible .... on the day that your woodland catches fire, or you fall ill, or someone steals all of your possessions (including whatever you're using to post), or the kids need education, or benefits/pension are required or .. or .. or .....

No, really...are we that far gone as a species that people really can't see how they could exist without government? If it catches fire and only our stuff is destroyed, we'll deal with it, if other people's stuff is destroyed, we'll be responsible for it, since we're capable of understanding risk, we don't need to be cotton wool wrapped. If we fall ill, we have natural medicine to deal with it, if that doesn't work, then ultimately we die, I already live my life without the NHS and modern medicine, in that respect things would be no different. This is a big philosophical/spiritual thing that's too difficult to explain to most people, especially in text form but I don't put humanity above everything else in the universe, I'm not into preserving human life (including my own) at any cost. I've been getting rid of possessions over the last few years and now have very little, if we go ahead with this I'll have almost nothing by the time we do it, no computers, they use too much power, if I got robbed today I wouldn't call the police so what's the difference? Haven't got kids and to be honest I'm fed up of paying for everyone else to breed. Benefits/pension, same response as healthcare.

In summary, I don't want your NHS, I don't want your benefits, I don't want your power grid, I don't want your Internet, I don't want your fire service and I certainly don't want your police and armed forces. If I get hurt or I die, it's MY responsibility, it's my fault and nobody elses. I don't require a computer, a mobile phone, a television or anything like that, I obviously have a computer, I'd quite happily go without it. And yes, I really mean all of that. I'm an adult, I'm not a student, I work and I reluctantly pay taxes for everyone else to have all of the above and a lot more, before anyone thinks of applying any stereotypes.

I don't intend for this thread to be a political rant but discussing being off-grid usually comes up with the usual "but what about..." stuff that isn't really required for my lifestyle anyway so I feel it's best to make my opinion clear.

zeupater wrote: »

Radical ideology is great until you start to think it through to the ultimate conclusions, then it all starts to fall apart

The only ideology that I consider to be radical is the dominant one of a murderous, destructive, hierarchical society that's determined to destroy the world and everything on it for the purpose of ego and vanity.

zeupater wrote: »

therefore without considering a hefty set of compromises, it looks like "I'll look at doing it in another country" would be high on the cards, but it'll need to be a relatively undeveloped country or you'll just be in the same boat

This has been my thought and is high on the cards, hence why it's in the original post, I think England is probably beyond help at this point and it might just be best to get out now.

Ectophile wrote: »

You may be able to build a home without anyone noticing - it has been done before. You then have to be able to go for several years without anybody noticing. Remember there's a lot of aerial and satellite photography these days - just look at Google or Bing maps.

How can they actually check if I don't allow them onto my land? Do you know what earthships are? I can't post links because I'm new here and the forum doesn't allow link posting for new accounts. But have a look at examples of them, they can be pretty well conceiled from above, especially in a wood.

Ectophile wrote: »

Without an address, you're going to have to use somebody else's address for all your correspondence. And no electricity, gas, phone, water, sewers.

Fine by me, the only correspondence that I get is capitalists begging for money. We don't need much power, in fact, we don't really NEED any really, what we want we can generate, if we fail to generate it, tough luck. Water falls from the sky, it's not a problem in this country but might be more of a serious consideration if we do this in another country.

Ectophile wrote: »

If you can build and live in a home for a sufficiently long time without anybody noticing, then you can claim retrospective approval. But good luck proving how long you've lived there if you've gone out of your way to avoid any evidence that there is anyone living there.

I don't see why I should prove anything to anyone, especially some work-shy desk jockey that has no value to the world other than oppressing people. If I'm not hurting anyone, I accept all risks to myself, accept all responsibility for my actions and I'm doing everything on land that I own, what's the problem?

Ken68

Hi Rash...Grand Designs on Channel 4 showed an Earthship being built, some years ago, in Brittany..... and more recently a cob house construction.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHO7JjZFI0E


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvpuPHNPQuI

choille

rash161 wrote: »

I'm interesting in building an Earthship or similar type of building to live in.

I'm just exploring the issues that might be encountered from the government, if they're going to get in the way too much then I'll look at doing it in another country.

I want to buy some land and build an Earthship, I don't like regular houses, I think they're inefficient, look stupid and they don't fit our lifestyle and like most things in this country, houses are probably only still built how they are because "it's how everyone does it" and nobody dares to question anything.

We don't want anything from the government, we're not interested in them or anything that they have to offer, we don't want them to protect us, we don't want them to help us, if we want to live in a building that doesn't meet their misinformed regulations then that's OUR responsibility, at no point in our lives did we ask them to protect us.

Woodland seems cheap in some places and it's easier to keep something like this hidden in a wood than on open land, would they expect us to ask for permission to build this on our own land? Would they want us to comply with their regulations? No employee of the government/council will have permission to be on our land so how could they ever know that we had a building there if they couldn't see it from a road?

I'd be expecting us to need to comply with their regulations for safety and things like that if we wanted to sell it in the future but we don't intend to do that, if we wanted to move on in the future we accept that we'll probably lose the money that went into building the earthship.

Can we avoid this type of thing if the property doesn't have an address?

This is such a huge subject, but you can build whatever you like, but enforcement notices can be slapped on it so you have to comply with Planning.

Earth ships as I know it are made from old tyres - not something that I think is inert - they give off fumes - I wouldn't wish to live in one.

You can get permission for a true eco house, not one with all the eco bling, but a proper low impact house, but it takes a lot of work & knowledge. If you are truly comitted to doing that then aquire some land that either has Planning permission on it or will gain it or just build what you want.

rash161

Thanks, I'll have a look at both, I'm open to different designs too, just the earthship is my current favourite. I looked at Wiki House, apart from it being too "housey" and not as resilient, the project still seems to be in the early stages from what I could see.

choille wrote: »

This is such a huge subject, but you can build whatever you like, but enforcement notices can be slapped on it so you have to comply with Planning.

Earth ships as I know it are made from old tyres - not something that I think is inert - they give off fumes - I wouldn't wish to live in one.

You can get permission for a true eco house, not one with all the eco bling, but a proper low impact house, but it takes a lot of work & knowledge. If you are truly comitted to doing that then aquire some land that either has Planning permission on it or will gain it or just build what you want.

The tyres are covered by other materials, you don't see bare tyres from inside or outside. Also, there's many toxins that are airborne from the toxic society that we live in anyway.

I don't want the government's idea of an eco house, I want the real thing. I know that I can buy land with planning permission on it or that I can gain permission on but why should I have to ask permission (and therefore pay)? The problem with capitalism is the amount of third parties begging for a hand out with everything because they're too useless to earn money without bullying people.

Also, if I get their permission then I'm also subject to their misinformed/money-grabbing regulations.

I don't like capitalism but I've learnt to live with it but the current implementation of it is a lot worse than it could be. While I consider property to be theft, especially when it comes to land, I'm willing to give money to someone that claims to own a piece of land in order to transfer ownership of that land to me but a third party, government or otherwise has no business getting involved unless either me or the seller asks them to become involved, and I certainly wouldn't ask them to be involved.

I don't want everything for free, I want very, very little, my issue is that I don't want to be forced to have things that I don't want, especially if I have to pay for them. As a tax payer...and tax is theft with the implied threat of violence I am funding the popular lifestyle of this country which is a lifestyle that I severely object to. However, I believe that people should make their own decisions and do what they want, just don't force me to be involved with it, that's fascism.

choille

I understand your frustraton, but getting back to the real world......

Earthships were designed for desert situations - they keep cool during the day & heat at night when the temps plummet - they store the heat from the sun & bang it out at night.

You may not get the same benifit in Devon or wherever you live or will live, but they do sort of fit that I'm eco rant rant image.

If you look at the location & design a house that suits that environment & build it as low impact as poss then that should be fine. You will still need to comply with fire regs & other safety issues if you are going down the legit route.

rash161

choille wrote: »

I understand your frustraton, but getting back to the real world......

I really don't like that phrase, anarchism IS the "real world". Hierarchical society, imperialism, capitalism and all of the other evils of the world are NOT the real world, they are a facade created by sick people that have nothing better to do than control and manipulate others.

Capitalism's a religion that makes Satan a god
And teaches self-righteous people to embrace a facade

The money that you worship is not real, you can't eat it, you can't drink it, you can't use it for shelter, you can't defend yourself with it. Sure, you can obtain all of those things in exchange for it, for as long as the person you're exchanging with accepts the value of it.

choille wrote: »

Earthships were designed for desert situations - they keep cool during the day & heat at night when the temps plummet - they store the heat from the sun & bang it out at night.

You may not get the same benifit in Devon or wherever you live or will live, but they do sort of fit that I'm eco rant rant image.

If you look at the location & design a house that suits that environment & build it as low impact as poss then that should be fine. You will still need to comply with fire regs & other safety issues if you are going down the legit route.

Yes, there's going to be design considerations based on location, this is why I'm looking at legal issues with geographic location to begin with, the earthship is an example, I really like the look and design of them but some details of them might be changed based on our location in the world, or indeed using a different design entirely.

I'm not too bothered about heating, I never use it currently in a house, I've slept outside in just a bivvi in winter plenty of times, don't understand why everyone is such a wimp these days.

choille

You're such a wee rascal eh?

Sounds like you have loads of dosh though. That helps.
If you live in the scottish highlands then heating is a requirement I can assure you of that.

If you build a house based on your ideals then that will be grand - that's what I'm in the process [long] of doing.I've lived in a caravan for 6 years while I do so.

I think you need to decide where you wish to live & then decide what sort of house would suit that location & your needs & then attempt to build it with or without permission - but bear in mind that shouting about doing it is not the same as the long slog & the reality of achieving it.

rash161

I don't have enough to afford this yet, but I'm getting close and I'm looking into all of the options and considerations now so that I can get going with it when I do have enough.

The Scottish Highlands is one place I did sleep outdoors, yes it was cold.

It's great that you're building based on your ideals, I respect anyone that does that. I don't force my ideals on anyone, all that I ask is that people don't force their ideals on me. I consider that to be more than fair considering that other people's ideals are a lot more destructive than mine, and yes, it's impossible to be perfect at this point in time but we can do a lot better.

I'm not just shouting I will achieve whatever is achievable in the best place to achieve it. I understand there's many anarchists that are just shouting and can be hypocrites. My lifestyle is as close to my ideals as possible and I'm always seeking to get closer.