We have almost completed selling house but neighbour has just applied for planning permission

kazwookie

Nothing is certain about completion 'next week' until exchange has taken place.

I suggest you formally send your solicitor 'an updated email regarding the property next door'  and leave it to them, do NOTHING else.

davidmcn

Jeepers_Creepers said:

say they do put in an objection and that this objection is accepted by planning, and they insist the neighb stops short of the boundary (I've no idea what Planning Departments tend to do in such cases in practice), what new info are you now going to pass on to the buyer? 

Is there a dispute? That's surely 'yes'. What's the outcome? A highly pi**edoff neighb. Happy new home.

What's the new owner going to face as soon as they buy the house? An appeal from their neighbour to retract the previous owner's demands. Good luck sorting that.  

I'm not sure that making representations about a planning application necessarily constitutes a "dispute", though that's probably academic as the planning application would have to be disclosed anyway, and then the objection would become apparent.

But in any event, I think you're overstating the power of such objections. Neighbours can't veto their neighbours' planning applications, the decisions are still made by the planners (or committee) on planning grounds whether or not objecters have pointed out problems. I doubt objections often make a great deal of difference, the planners will already know their existing policies and how to apply them.

Gavbo2013

Thanks for all the input.

We have decided to just to inform our solicitor about the application and leave it with them.

Fingers crossed it doesn't affect the sale....we are optimistic!

Jeepers_Creepers

davidmcn said:

Jeepers_Creepers said:

say they do put in an objection and that this objection is accepted by planning, and they insist the neighb stops short of the boundary (I've no idea what Planning Departments tend to do in such cases in practice), what new info are you now going to pass on to the buyer? 

Is there a dispute? That's surely 'yes'. What's the outcome? A highly pi**edoff neighb. Happy new home.

What's the new owner going to face as soon as they buy the house? An appeal from their neighbour to retract the previous owner's demands. Good luck sorting that.  

I'm not sure that making representations about a planning application necessarily constitutes a "dispute", though that's probably academic as the planning application would have to be disclosed anyway, and then the objection would become apparent.

But in any event, I think you're overstating the power of such objections. Neighbours can't veto their neighbours' planning applications, the decisions are still made by the planners (or committee) on planning grounds whether or not objecters have pointed out problems. I doubt objections often make a great deal of difference, the planners will already know their existing policies and how to apply them.

I don't know if objecting to a neighbour's planning application constitutes a 'dispute' as far as the SIP is concerned, but I would be surprised if it didn't require disclosing. And what I - as a buyer - would read into this is that one of the first things I'd be facing as the new owner is a tetchy neighbour hoping I'd be more accepting that the previous occupant. 

I would agree with your latter point - 'Planning' make their decisions based on standard protocol, and I can't see them objecting to such an extension where the precedent has already been set. 

To 'object', in the hope of stopping it happening, seems to me to be a worse move than just letting it roll - they're unlikely to get a decision from Planning any time soon due to this, but the neighb will be informed of this 'objection'.  I don't think I'd ever buy a property like this telling myself "Och, they'll neffer want tae build an extenshun there - like me an' a'body else has...". I would assume that the chances are considerable that they would, and make my decision accordingly - would I be ok with this happening? This example is effectively a fait accompli, and I think the OP should accept this rather than muddy the waters.

(Absolutely no idea why I descended into pseudo skots..)

Jeepers_Creepers

Gavbo2013 said:

Thanks for all the input.

We have decided to just to inform our solicitor about the application and leave it with them.

Fingers crossed it doesn't affect the sale....we are optimistic!

Cool. Good luck :-)