Enforcement notice on garage conversion

mollygriffin88

Wonder if anyone can help me as I’m new to all of this! Sorry it’s a long one.. 

Last year we applied through planning permission to extend our garage forward and add a pitched roof turning it into a bedroom.
the council rejected our application as they said the garage counted as a parking space (not that a car would ever fit in there) and that we don’t have room out the front of our house for another car.. we have measured and we absolutely do.. thinking they know this they added that with a space outside the property could look too car heavy and not attractive. 

So we applied again and this time creating a smaller room so it didn’t count as a bedroom therefore no need for a space.. they still rejected us on the potential parking and bedroom making. 

after this our neighbour suggested not extending the garage forward or adding a pitched roof and just convert the garage through building regulations as this is what he did with his bungalow.
so we did just that.. all was happily signed off by the building inspector and we thought everything was fine.

We then received a letter from the council stating someone had complained about us carrying out a garage extension although it was rejected by the council.
we called the council and explained we didn’t carry out such work and just completed a building conversion.
the council man then explained there is a supposed clause on our property from when it was built stating that the garage was never allowed to be converted.
the council man then came and visited us and suggested changing the room to a smaller one or turning it into a big living room.. we asked how this could be allowed under this clause if it still wouldn’t be a garage?
we then asked why have we never been made aware of this clause?
the council man said he’s colleague should of attached this clause paperwork to the rejection letters at the start and never did.. so how can we be penalised for that? 

We also looked all the way back through the deeds on our property and it doesn’t state this anywhere. We looked on the council website and these forms are also nowhere to be found on there.
finally we looked on the land registry site as we registered it when we bought the house and on the charges register on there it states there are no restrictions on the property.
so it seems the only people that have this paperwork with a clause is the council themselves who have never made this public knowledge? Or knowledge to us the owners!!
so my question is how can an enforcement notice possibly be issued when 1. We didn’t even carry out the planning permission works they’re stating and 2. How can we break a clause/rule that no one except the council ever knew existed?! 

Will be grateful for any help or advise! 

Sorry for the long post  

davidmcn

mollygriffin88 said:

How can we break a clause/rule that no one except the council ever knew existed?! 

Whatever they're talking about won't be a secret - have you checked the planning permission for the house?

loubel

Sounds like permitted development rights for garage conversions were removed for your property when it was first built. It would have been in the planning permission. Is it a fairly new house? 

eddddy

This would have been a planning condition linked to the planning consent when your house (or the housing development) was originally built.

The planning condition might be specifically that you cannot convert the garage, or it might be that all permitted development rights are removed.

This should have been something that showed up whilst you were buying the house - it would be stated in the planning consent documents.  Did your solicitor mention it when reporting to you?


(Edit to add...
If anyone's to blame, it wouldn't be the council. Maybe you could argue that it's your solicitor, if they failed to highlight this.)

princeofpounds

Our Stalinist planning system strikes again...

It's almost certainly as loubel suggests; the council removed the permitted development rights to the development as a condition of planning permission. Because why wouldn't you remove the ability to convert a garage for evil people who have the cheek to build housing? Haven't they already done enough harm?!

Have they actually issued an enforcement notice? They may decide that it's not worth it. 

If they do, or say they are going to, then I suggest you get an initial appointment with a planning lawyer and/or consultant. There may well be holes in the way the council have gone about things, and sometimes they will concede under challenge over minor issues when it becomes apparent it's going to cost them money.

mollygriffin88

So just to add some more background, there is nothing on the council website from when our house was built in 1993, no documents attached at all.. which we did find strange. 

On the 2 planning permissions we put through nothing was attached regarding this in the refusal about the clause.
there is nothing regarding this on the land registry and we have all the deeds dating back to 1925 before the house was even built and again no restrictions are listed.
there seems be only one copy of this clause and it’s in the council office itself. So again I don’t know how we could follow this rule or clause when no one bar the council has ever known of its existence? 

Even the solicitors wouldn’t of been able to find it as it’s in no deeds or anywhere online?
this is the confusing part! 

davidmcn

mollygriffin88 said:

Even the solicitors wouldn’t of been able to find it as it’s in no deeds or anywhere online?
this is the confusing part! 

Planning permissions are publicly available - just because the stuff from 1993 isn't online doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't still applicable. We're not talking about title conditions, which are nothing to do with planning decisions.

As queried above, are you sure your solicitors didn't see it during the course of your purchase (or even report to you about it)?

xylophone

Have you asked the council to provide copies of the relevant documents (presumably stored in archives)?

mollygriffin88

100% our solicitors didn’t report this to us when we bought the property as we was always planning on doing this so we was cautious around this. 

I understand what you’re saying on them being available to the public but we would never think to ask for anything extra as we had all the paperwork for the property being built and even see the plans for the property being built.
it’s just one extra page that they have shown us in person now that has the clause on it..
The council man that came round also said to us that off the record, the council official who rejected our planning application should of attached this paperwork and included it as a reason for refusal and never did..
we haven’t actually been giving an enforcement order yet the words are just being thrown around at the moment..
so just wondered if they’re likely to push through with it? 

Again, as the letter we received said we carried out a garage extension despite refusal.. but we never carried out a garage EXTENSION .. just a conversion

eddddy

mollygriffin88 said:

we haven’t actually been giving an enforcement order yet the words are just being thrown around at the moment..
so just wondered if they’re likely to push through with it? 

Again, as the letter we received said we carried out a garage extension despite refusal.. but we never carried out a garage EXTENSION .. just a conversion

OK - so maybe you can apply for retrospective planning consent, and maybe it will be approved.

It sounds like you might have annoyed a neighbour, if they complained to the council about this. Could it be because you've been parking on the street (instead of in the garage) and taking up one of the limited parking spaces, and the neighbour is having trouble parking?


Edit to add...
What were the reasons for the rejection of your 2 planning applications?  If loss of off-street parking was a reason, I guess your current conversion might be rejected for the same reason.

mollygriffin88

Yeah so they said our garage counted as a parking space, but you would literally have to have mr beans car to fit it inside our garage lol.
we have always had one car on the drive and one parked opposite our house since we lived here.. all our neighbours have more than enough parking on their own drives.. they’re all quite elderly and it’s not much of a busy road either. 

But they also said we don’t have enough room out the front of our house for another car but we have measured we do! So they did add it could look too Car heavy and unattractive? But that just sounds like a matter of opinion rather than a law/rule  
Also all our closest neighbours seem just as annoyed about the whole situation as we do lol