Council Rip Off - Alterations to Ex-Council House

CS100

Sadly they can! Our house is freehold.

marytdunn

harryhound wrote: »

I have a relative with one of these.
She has simply ignored it and the Council have not (yet) noticed, but which could cause problems at any future sale. In your case you probably need planning permission anyway.
I think it is a complete rip-off that the Council, which already controls and charges for the planning and building control procedures, can treat ex council estate residents as a lower form of life and milk money out of them for what it is already doing for the rest of the borough.

Reading the above I thought you would like to hear our tale of woe.....

We bought an ex couoncil house on the open market 15 years ago. 6 Years ago we built an extension not realising there was a restrictive covenant. This year we have added another extension and created a new house - thereby being able to sell original house and pay off our mortgage!!! Of course, we have now hit the problem with the restrictive covenant that we were not aware of. The wonderful London borough involved is charging us £30000.00 plus costs to 'release' us from these covenants. So much for being able to retire with no mortgage. We think it grossly unfair that this can happen. Why is there no set fee for something like this?? The council in question seem to allow things when it wants to. We're gutted.

harryhound

Presumably you went through the planning system to create the second dwelling and got permission?
So now another section of the Council is simple extracting 30K in "protection money" from you? It is not as though you are not already paying for the normal planning permission & building control charges.
The same thing can happen on private estates, a relative of mine got charged slightly more than the council charged for normal planning permission and building control in exchange for passing a modest kitchen extension as acceptable to "the estate". Good money for for stamping a copy of the plans and writing a non-objection letter.