Seller did not disclose planning application

Hoenir

LV_426 said:

 The planned building will drastically reduce light coming in to the kitchen and upstairs bedroom.

Have you had a loss of light calculation performed? 

Life is too short to spend time creating conspiracy theories. 

propertyrental

LV_426 said:

Lot of incorrect assumptions here, as I would have expected. A number of comments assuming we didn't check the local planning applications. Of course we did. However this one came up in mid process after we'd done our checks, and we didn't recheck. Lesson learned I guess. 

Well then I don't se what the sellers could/should have done. You checked. You didn't see it. Doubtless the sellers also didn't.

Could well be the neighbours pulled a fast one here and timed it to coincide with the sale, knowing the outgoing residents would never protest. 

. Now you're in conspiracy theory territory......

Soot2006

When we sold our house the buyer's solicitor asked a question about planning permission nearby for an ENORMOUS new building. We had no idea, despite it being within 50m of our property. We knew there had been discussions for ten years about what might or might not happen to that site, but had no idea something had actually been approved. No notices, nothing through the letter box, etc .... As it happens, the seller didn't have a problem with it, but it made me less quick to blame others for what they may or may not know about the surrounding properties.

knightstyle

We had similar, forget about going after te sellers it will be a waste of time and money.  Go after the company who did the searches, we used the "The Property Ombudsman Limited, Registered in England No:  3339975 Registered Office – Milford House, 43 - 55 Milford Street, Salisbury, Wiltshire, SP1 2BP"  and were awarded the maximum which is £1000.

user1977

knightstyle said:

We had similar, forget about going after te sellers it will be a waste of time and money.  Go after the company who did the searches

As I queried above, that's only a relevant complaint if the search was meant to disclose applications for next door.

newsgroupmonkey_

Call me a cynic, but the vendors knew.
And I wouldn't be surprised if that's why they put it up for sale.

BungalowBel

The local search will only be for planning applications on your property, unless told otherwise (and paid for).

EssexHebridean

When we lived in our flat, the freeholder came up with a hare-brained scheme to dig up and tarmac over 75% of the green space in front of us to turn it into a car park. This would literally have been about 3m in front of the living and  bedroom windows for the downstairs flats in the centre part of the block.  we objected, but also flagged up with neighbours that they might want to object as well, knowing that the sort of notification that came through the post would be ignored by many as junk mail. It came to light as a result of that rabble-rousing on our part that in fact only the central part of the block had been notified at all, the flats at the end of the block on each end (8 in total, out of 24) had not been notified at all. 

The local authority's planning portal will tell you exactly when the application was put in - and that in term will inform when the sellers may have been notified, although of course there is no absolutely certainty that they did receive that notification, as already said. If they didn't, then I don't believe there is any real responsibility on their part to have been continually checking the council's planning applications page to see if someone "might" have put in an application. 

When we sold the flat, we answered the question about awareness about any planning stuff with "No" on the basis that we'd not been notified of anything. And that IS all that the relevant questions on the form ask - there is certainly no onus on anyone to actively search out stuff!