Seller didn't disclose neighbour's approved planning permission - do we have any recourse?

ThisIsWeird

I think the nub of this particular issue is whether the OP has any come-back against the seller for probably lying in the SIP form. The intro to this form makes it clear how important it is to be factual and honest, and to even update the information should something they become aware of comes to light.

In reality, no-one seems to give a toff. I could demonstrate very clearly that a vendor of a house we looked at had blatantly misinformed in their SIP, but no-one cared, not the EA and not our conveyancer. (And that including me, as I knew it wasn't really an 'issue' in practice. In essence, they'd converted an attached garage into habitable space, and built a conservatory against it, fully open to the inside - a complete breach of both Planning and BRegs. But, hey, it's extra room ).

So I doubt very much that the OP can successfully challenge this, and it's likely the kind of situation that requires an individual to actually have the balls to take action, and set a precedent in court.

knightstyle

Our sellers put no in the box which asks about nearby developments. Plus the searches did not show up the nearby large development, 400 houses, school, community centre and more just 50M from the house.  
We complained and got the brush off from the search company so we went to the Property Ombudsman who found in our favour but could only award us £1000 as that was their maximum.

user1977

And as previously queried, what's the loss? Yes, there'll be some disturbance during the works, and the OP might be disappointed that their view isn't as nice as they remembered, but after that, is the objective market value of the property actually going to be less? Maybe it will, but I doubt there's much point going through the time and cost of pursuing it before you know whether there's something worth claiming for.

TheJP

Divorcing_Dad said:

TheJP said:

Divorcing_Dad said:

We had a similar issue on our last house, only it wasn't directly next door.

Turned out, some land next to our neighbours had planning permission for 12 houses and we would lose all of our parking.

We still bought the house as we had our own drive (but would have made it tight).

Wasn't mentioned on the form - it had expired twice and the planning had been put in again.

As it turned out, it was nonsense. The Parish council owned the land for the houses, but the land in front that they would have had to rip out entirely to create the access road was owned by the church diocese. The diocese had absolutely no wish to sell or develop the land, so whilst they didn't object to the planning permission, it could never go ahead.

It just shows.... you can put in planning permission for anything, even if you don't own the land.

Anyway, back to the point, sadly, it's up to you to check the planning. Whilst the TA6 is legally binding, if the seller said "No, not that I remember" (and considering this was over 5 years ago if the planning had expired), it probably wouldn't stand up in court. I mean politicians get away with things they forgot last week! The other thing is, they may well not realise that the planning hadn't expired - I mean, it's not really up to them to check whether the minimum works had started.

Where you parking on someone else's land or selling your parking?

It was the end of a cul-de-sac. It was parking, but not marked...

The piece of church land is the bit the trees are on.

Ok i get it, its not parking but is public space. Anyone can park there? Small space for 12 houses unless we aren't seeing more of the land.

[Deleted User]

user1977 said:

And as previously queried, what's the loss? Yes, there'll be some disturbance during the works, and the OP might be disappointed that their view isn't as nice as they remembered, but after that, is the objective market value of the property actually going to be less? Maybe it will, but I doubt there's much point going through the time and cost of pursuing it before you know whether there's something worth claiming for.

This is the problem with property. It's all about the price, not the value.

ThisIsWeird

knightstyle said:

Our sellers put no in the box which asks about nearby developments. Plus the searches did not show up the nearby large development, 400 houses, school, community centre and more just 50M from the house.  
We complained and got the brush off from the search company so we went to the Property Ombudsman who found in our favour but could only award us £1000 as that was their maximum.

That's interesting, Knight. This parking space was never part of 'your' land, nor allocated as parking, yet you received £1k for your 'loss'? Or was that sum a punishment for the vendor fibbing?

knightstyle

The award was paid by the surveyor not the sellers who had moved away and we had no way of contacting them, even their solicitors could not get in touch about this and many other things they lied about as they had moved into rented and then abroad. 
The development will be using the road in front of our house as the main entrance and there will be considerable disruption during the build and vastly increased traffic afterwards as the road is currently a quiet cul-de-sac.

Divorcing_Dad

TheJP said:

Divorcing_Dad said:

TheJP said:

Divorcing_Dad said:

We had a similar issue on our last house, only it wasn't directly next door.

Turned out, some land next to our neighbours had planning permission for 12 houses and we would lose all of our parking.

We still bought the house as we had our own drive (but would have made it tight).

Wasn't mentioned on the form - it had expired twice and the planning had been put in again.

As it turned out, it was nonsense. The Parish council owned the land for the houses, but the land in front that they would have had to rip out entirely to create the access road was owned by the church diocese. The diocese had absolutely no wish to sell or develop the land, so whilst they didn't object to the planning permission, it could never go ahead.

It just shows.... you can put in planning permission for anything, even if you don't own the land.

Anyway, back to the point, sadly, it's up to you to check the planning. Whilst the TA6 is legally binding, if the seller said "No, not that I remember" (and considering this was over 5 years ago if the planning had expired), it probably wouldn't stand up in court. I mean politicians get away with things they forgot last week! The other thing is, they may well not realise that the planning hadn't expired - I mean, it's not really up to them to check whether the minimum works had started.

Where you parking on someone else's land or selling your parking?

It was the end of a cul-de-sac. It was parking, but not marked...

The piece of church land is the bit the trees are on.

Ok i get it, its not parking but is public space. Anyone can park there? Small space for 12 houses unless we aren't seeing more of the land.

Actually, it's not. Clearly, anyone can use it, but because the way the street was laid out, only 4 houses would ever use it and 2 of them had their own driveway.

That picture was the most people I'd ever seen parked there