Retrospective Planning Permission Objections

AndyBSG

Not sure if this is the correct forum but hoping someone can help me.

My house shares a partial boundary wall with my neighbours as we are in a staggered terrace, Basically about 10-15ft of my kitchen wall extends past their house and they had a very cheap looking conservatory occupying this space but there was a gap between my kitchen wall and their conservatory so there were no party wall issues.

My neighbour has now decided to rip down the conservatory and build a single story extension with a pitched roof so the end of their house is now level with the end of mine.

Work started in August and is now almost complete and I saw no sign of any planning request on our local council planning site until this week when we received a letter notifying us of a retrospective planning application.

My main concerns are as follows and hoping for advice on what options are open to me and what chances of success I have with them.

- There has been no party wall application. I've not managed to get up an look in great detail but it appears they have built right up to our wall with no gap and no evidence of any sealant. If they don't want to apply for party wall status do they have to leave a gap of a minimum size? If they should have got a party wall agreement from me what are my options?

- Our kitchen is a single story galley with a flat roof, their pitched roof has no guttering at the side and there is no room for guttering as they are up to the boundary. End result is there is runoff from the side of their roof dumping onto our flat roof. If there is a gap between our kitchen wall and their wall does this not expose us to a damp risk as there is now no way of accessing this minute gap?

- I don't think a building reg inspection has been carried out. Would it be the job of the council building inspector to address the party wall, guttering and damp issues?

casper_g

I don't have any great expertise but as I understand it those are not planning considerations so although they are reasonable things to be concerned about this is not the right avenue to address them.

I would be concerned about this though, especially with regard to how water drains off the roof. Maybe it would be an idea to ring your local council's Building Control (not Planning) department for an off-the-record chat about the best way to proceed. You can always speak to them without giving your address etc. to avoid anything escalating until youdecide how to proceed.

Furts

I find the circumstances odd, because your opportunity to be pro active started in August. Why wait until now? Further, you could have involved both the Planning Department and the Buildings Regulations before now. This could have ratcheted up to Enforcement in this period.

My suggestion is you are trying to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted. The Council may be reluctant to get involved and reflect on your in action. They may view this as a dispute they wish to be no part of. Certainly lodge an objection to the Retrospective Application, and see how this progresses.

The extension may be jerry built, by pure cowboys, but it is not your role to seek Buildings Regulations on it. By all means explore this with the Council, but be realistic that this may not lead anywhere. To know about Inspections you need to ask the neighbour - the Council may know nothing about it because an Approved Inspector was used in lieu of their resources.

AndyBSG

My concerns though were not with the early parts of the extension but the recent parts.

All of my issues come with the sloping roof which is now dumping water onto my flat roof and in the small gap between my boundary wall and the neighbours extension wall.

The roof was only put on in the last few weeks. In fact the whole way it has been built over such a long and delayed period has led me to believe they took so long but then got the roof on in record time precisely so they can argue "Well, building started 3 months ago and there were no objections"... Of course not because there were no planning documents for us to object to and they didn't appear until after the offending roof with no drainage went up!

If the neighbour had the common sense to discuss it with us we would have suggested the most common sense option would have been to leave no gap between his extension and our boundary wall by coming to a party wall agreement.

This would have removed the risk of damp in the gap due to no drainage and lack of ventilation and lack of access for maintenance. I'm pretty sure any planner/surveyor/builder who knew his job would also have said the same.

I don't actually have an issue with the planning application itself. My issue is purely with the drainage and maintenance issues which I understand are more of a building control issue.

phil24_7

Get and have a word with your neighbour. Involve their builder too if necessary. See if you can all come to an agreement (get this checked over by someone in the know) and then document it.

It is not acceptable for them to allow water run of onto your property as far as I am aware.

Furts

AndyBSG wrote: »

My concerns though were not with the early parts of the extension but the recent parts.

All of my issues come with the sloping roof which is now dumping water onto my flat roof and in the small gap between my boundary wall and the neighbours extension wall.

The roof was only put on in the last few weeks. In fact the whole way it has been built over such a long and delayed period has led me to believe they took so long but then got the roof on in record time precisely so they can argue "Well, building started 3 months ago and there were no objections"... Of course not because there were no planning documents for us to object to and they didn't appear until after the offending roof with no drainage went up!

If the neighbour had the common sense to discuss it with us we would have suggested the most common sense option would have been to leave no gap between his extension and our boundary wall by coming to a party wall agreement.

This would have removed the risk of damp in the gap due to no drainage and lack of ventilation and lack of access for maintenance. I'm pretty sure any planner/surveyor/builder who knew his job would also have said the same.

I don't actually have an issue with the planning application itself. My issue is purely with the drainage and maintenance issues which I understand are more of a building control issue.

The roof may have been put on in the past few weeks, but the walls would have been built up to plate level before this - possibly months ago. Hence it would have been possible to deduce how the roof was to be formed. Further, the small gap between you and the neighbour would have been present from the moment the foundations were dug. This would have been obvious when the walls were set out on the foundation, and this is the start of the building process. This occurred in August. Hence my comments about your late interjection into this.

To shed light on Planning - and suggest that you may be slightly cynical over matters - drawings would have been submitted. The gap would have been apparent, but I accept that it would be on a small scale and would need a careful viewing to spot it. However, it would have been your duty to spot it - there is nothing underhand here. The pitch of the roof would have been clearly drawn, so you would have the opportunity to flag this up.

You may say I am being the Devil's Advocate, but my concern is this. You have allowed the building to progress to completion without raising any formal objection, or engaging at any level with the Council. The reasonable conclusion is had drawings been submitted, would you have diligently scrutinised them looking at the gap, looking at the drainage, considering maintenance, and all other issues? Then would you have raised a formal written objection in a sufficient manner to convince the Council to refuse Planning Permission? It is because of this that you may now have an uphill battle to get the Council on your side.

AndyBSG

Furts wrote: »

The roof may have been put on in the past few weeks, but the walls would have been built up to plate level before this - possibly months ago.

Yes, the walls were built up level with our existing 1 storey structure. The roof only went up in the last two weeks so until then we assumed it was going to be a flat roof in keeping with the existing structures of every other property in the street.

Furts wrote: »

Further, the small gap between you and the neighbour would have been present from the moment the foundations were dug.

No foundations were dug. They have just built on top of the existing foundations that were there for their patio and the old plastic conservatory. The old conservatory did not go up to the boundary but had a gap of at least a foot

Furts wrote: »

To shed light on Planning - and suggest that you may be slightly cynical over matters - drawings would have been submitted.

No drawings were submitted until about two weeks ago. Until then we assumed the extension was small scale permitted development. Then in the space of two weeks a roof suddenly appeared out of nowhere, butting right up to our boundary and we received notification of retrospective planning.

Until those two events we had no idea how close they had come up tour our boundary as everything was below the fence line.

Hence my earlier assertions that was all very deliberate so they could hide the extent of the build until the last possible moment then rush through the completion and apply for planning retrospectively to give us little time to object.

I currently have two weeks to get a surveyor round, research the impact this may have on my home, raise and document my objections and lodge them

As said, my main issues are the drainage and damp risk to my property if they have not joined their wall to mine and put a damp seal in leaving me at risk of water ingress OR if they have joint mine the complete lack of any party wall agreement.

Ant555

I know you are probably on with getting this assessed but I assume if planning permission has been sought then it is subject to Building Regs and therefore a visit from council building control inspectors.

Do interested parties such as yourself have access to building control sign off sheets on your council planning portal?

I would be amazed if it is permitted to simply allow rainwater to flow down between two walls - you mention that they have built right up to your boundary but is there any scope for guttering to be attached to their build (even if it overhangs your flat roof?)

chappers

Furts wrote: »

You may say I am being the Devil's Advocate, but my concern is this. You have allowed the building to progress to completion without raising any formal objection, or engaging at any level with the Council. The reasonable conclusion is had drawings been submitted, would you have diligently scrutinised them looking at the gap, looking at the drainage, considering maintenance, and all other issues? Then would you have raised a formal written objection in a sufficient manner to convince the Council to refuse Planning Permission? It is because of this that you may now have an uphill battle to get the Council on your side.

Totally irrelevant, you can make any objections, up to the date set out in the planning procedure, the OP was originally unaware of planning issues as no application was made and it doesn't appear that he has an issue with the extension per se, but just the build quality issues.

The neighbour should have entered into a party wall agreement as he is creating foundations within 3m of your building.
However the party wall act has little teeth, there is no provision for legal penalty for not entering into a party wall act and the only way you could stop the works is by court order.
However regardless of whether a PWA has been entered into he still has the same responsibilities and liabilities if he damages your property. If your wall is on the boundary he could have built onto your wall and the only way you could stop him is by court order.

With regards to the building regulations issues, he is not allowed to discharge water onto your property and he is not allowed for any part of his building to cross the boundary, including roofing or guttering. The correct way around this is to create a box gutter adjacent to the boundary and for his roof to be stepped back and to discharge into that.
Check as the BCO may not pick up on this, basically inform them as it will be much easier to sort it prior to sign off rather than going through the courts at a later date.
Though by the sounds of it getting full sign off might not be his highest priority.

With regards to the roof his planning application may be turned down if any part of his structure obscures any of your windows, as a general rule this is assessed by taking a line from the centre of the lowest window which may be affected and drawing a line at a 45 degree angle horizontally and 25 degrees vertically and any part of his structure within that area may be deemed to be blocking your light. However this is a general rule and not all encompassing though some local authorities will flatly refuse permission on this alone a brief bit of info HERE, there is more detailed info if you want to search the net.

AndyBSG

I have now been up on the roof and seen the extent of the extension. The retrospective planning permission is still outstanding and I have until the end of this week to object.

- They have built their extension off of our wall with no application for a party wall agreement.

- They have removed all of the fascia's from our extension to enable them to join our wall. No permission was sought, we were not told, the fascias were within our boundary(regardless, they had been there more than a decade so even if they were breaching their boundary they had been there long enough to be legal)

- They have removed all of our lead flashing(Obviously because if they hadn't removed it the flashing and fascias would have been inside their new extension.

I've now consulted a solicitor this morning foe an initial chat and they are going to call me back this afternoon once they have consulted the planning documents that have been submitted.

I am also waiting on a call back form the council building control person to discuss the lack of party wall application and drainage concerns.

Questions I have now.

- Should I go and speak to the neighbour? This all could have been avoided if they had discussed it with me first and i'm pretty angry they have just torn down our fascias, flashing and butted onto our wall without a shred of discussion so doubt seeing them will achieve anything as they've clearly shown the sort of neighbours they are so not sure if I should just leave it and go down the legal route.

- I understand they should foot the bill for a surveyor on the party wall front. How do I go about doing this and getting them to pay for it?

- I don't really have any objections to the planning permission(it's not green belt, not blocking light, etc). I understand building regs, party wall etc aren't part of planning permission so is it pointless raising a planning objection on this basis?

- We had an extension of our own planned for next year which would have involved us knocking down the wall they have built onto. Where does this leave us now? There is no party wall agreement and it is our wall so can we knock this down still?

System

AndyBSG wrote: »

- Should I go and speak to the neighbour?

yes, this is the only way you are ever going to resolve any of the issues, most of the issues you have are not valid planning objections or able to be addressed retrospectively (party wall agreement).

your neighbour may have been at fault for not following the correct protocol but I'd be surprised if they know what the builder has done on your roof...

If you go down the legal route now and not speak with the neighbour you can count on a huge battle to get your own extension built - the discussion might be difficult but it has to happen