Planning Permission

hallettm100

Hi everyone, I am in the process of buying a house, but my solicitor has only been able to locate conditional planning permission for the property. As a result, they have requested a full residential structural survey and an indemnity policy. Is this sufficient and could we face issues if we decide to sell if we want to downsize. Thank you.

hallettm100

Also the property is over ten years old.

Bigphil1474

Isn't most planning permission conditional? Sounds off to me. If the house didn't have planning permission, then I would have thought it's past the time limit for planning to enforce anything, so the indemnity would be pointless? The indemnity policy usually just covers you for any legal shenanigans. It doesn't cover the cost of rebuilding the house if planning tell you to demolish it.  Similarly, planning don't deal with structural issues so not sure why that would lead to the need for a structural survey - need to find out if building control signed it off. 

You can normally access planning and BC information yourself, so it's worth checking what the council have, then speak to your solicitor. They either haven't explained it to you properly, or they are off on some weird tangent IMO.

user1977

"Over ten" years old meaning what? 11 years? 50 years?

Is the problem a lack of building control documentation? If so, what investigations has anybody done? What sort of house is it - a one-off thing or part of a bigger development?

What you do mean by your solicitor has "requested a full residential structural survey"? It's entirely up to you what level of survey (if any) you get.

Yorkie1

Bigphil1474 said:

Isn't most planning permission conditional? Sounds off to me. If the house didn't have planning permission, then I would have thought it's past the time limit for planning to enforce anything, so the indemnity would be pointless? The indemnity policy usually just covers you for any legal shenanigans. It doesn't cover the cost of rebuilding the house if planning tell you to demolish it.  Similarly, planning don't deal with structural issues so not sure why that would lead to the need for a structural survey - need to find out if building control signed it off. 

You can normally access planning and BC information yourself, so it's worth checking what the council have, then speak to your solicitor. They either haven't explained it to you properly, or they are off on some weird tangent IMO.

Worth pointing out that going direct to the council to ask about issues on a particular property may be likely to prevent any indemnity policy being available in future, if appropriate.

Searches on the portal are fine, but direct approaches that will be on the record, more of a concern for the current and any future sellers.

hallettm100

user1977 said:

"Over ten" years old meaning what? 11 years? 50 years?

Is the problem a lack of building control documentation? If so, what investigations has anybody done? What sort of house is it - a one-off thing or part of a bigger development?

What you do mean by your solicitor has "requested a full residential structural survey"? It's entirely up to you what level of survey (if any) you get.

councils generally have a 10-year time limit to take enforcement action against most breaches of planning control. If the property has no planning permission then it might mean it didn’t have building regulations to say the building is sound so I think that’s why a full residential structure survey has been requested. 

hallettm100

Bigphil1474 said:

Isn't most planning permission conditional? Sounds off to me. If the house didn't have planning permission, then I would have thought it's past the time limit for planning to enforce anything, so the indemnity would be pointless? The indemnity policy usually just covers you for any legal shenanigans. It doesn't cover the cost of rebuilding the house if planning tell you to demolish it.  Similarly, planning don't deal with structural issues so not sure why that would lead to the need for a structural survey - need to find out if building control signed it off. 

You can normally access planning and BC information yourself, so it's worth checking what the council have, then speak to your solicitor. They either haven't explained it to you properly, or they are off on some weird tangent IMO.

Thank you 👍🏻 

user1977

hallettm100 said:

user1977 said:

"Over ten" years old meaning what? 11 years? 50 years?

Is the problem a lack of building control documentation? If so, what investigations has anybody done? What sort of house is it - a one-off thing or part of a bigger development?

What you do mean by your solicitor has "requested a full residential structural survey"? It's entirely up to you what level of survey (if any) you get.

If the property has no planning permission then it might mean it didn’t have building regulations to say the building is sound so I think that’s why a full residential structure survey has been requested. 

But you've said it did have planning permission? (you may need to clarify what you think you mean by "conditional planning permission" - planning consents invariably have conditions)

Has nobody checked the relevant archives for building regs consent? Hint - consents for new houses are often not indexed under the postal address later allocated to them!