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Kesteral
Posts: 14 Forumite
Hi,
We bought a house in October and were informed before purchasing that the neighbours had planning permission for a 1st floor extension at the back to increase the length of their bedroom by 1 metre. The plans showed that the extension would be on the boundary line between our properties so we asked explicitly during the purchase process whether this was accurate.
We received e-mails and signed documentation from the previous owners (through the estate agent/solicitors) saying that the neighbour would not build the extension astride the boundary line and that it would be built up to the boundary line instead. It was also confirmed no party wall agreement had been signed. We were happy with this and continued on with the purchase
Fast forward to now and the neighbour has a builder who's started on the extension. When we got home one evening we noticed that the wall they've started building is astride the boundary. We questioned this the next morning by going round and asking. He and the builder (who was also there) were very understanding, but our neighbour told us that he made it fully aware to the previous owner what his intentions were and sat down with them and the architect to go through the drawings/plans in detail over a year ago.
As a side note, it seems like the reason they are building astride the boundary is due to the foundation beneath it.
The neighbour has asked us to have a think about what we want to do before they continue any work. Now I need to think about our options.
Should we contact the estate agent/solicitors and say that the house has been missold to us and we want compensation? I do think there's a chance this could hurt the valuation when it comes to reselling in the future.
We don't want to fall out with our current neighbours as they've been very nice and haven't done anything wrong, apart from not getting us sign a party wall agreement before the work started, but at the same time I'm not comfortable with this after going through all of the hassle to have it previously confirmed that they weren't building astride the boundary. I don't want to lose out here.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
We bought a house in October and were informed before purchasing that the neighbours had planning permission for a 1st floor extension at the back to increase the length of their bedroom by 1 metre. The plans showed that the extension would be on the boundary line between our properties so we asked explicitly during the purchase process whether this was accurate.
We received e-mails and signed documentation from the previous owners (through the estate agent/solicitors) saying that the neighbour would not build the extension astride the boundary line and that it would be built up to the boundary line instead. It was also confirmed no party wall agreement had been signed. We were happy with this and continued on with the purchase
Fast forward to now and the neighbour has a builder who's started on the extension. When we got home one evening we noticed that the wall they've started building is astride the boundary. We questioned this the next morning by going round and asking. He and the builder (who was also there) were very understanding, but our neighbour told us that he made it fully aware to the previous owner what his intentions were and sat down with them and the architect to go through the drawings/plans in detail over a year ago.
As a side note, it seems like the reason they are building astride the boundary is due to the foundation beneath it.
The neighbour has asked us to have a think about what we want to do before they continue any work. Now I need to think about our options.
Should we contact the estate agent/solicitors and say that the house has been missold to us and we want compensation? I do think there's a chance this could hurt the valuation when it comes to reselling in the future.
We don't want to fall out with our current neighbours as they've been very nice and haven't done anything wrong, apart from not getting us sign a party wall agreement before the work started, but at the same time I'm not comfortable with this after going through all of the hassle to have it previously confirmed that they weren't building astride the boundary. I don't want to lose out here.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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Comments
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I may be wrong here but solictors/estate agents can only act on what they are told, wouldn't your case be against the former owners if they knowingly supplied incorrect information0
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Surely if there was planning permission in place, and you saw the plans and were told otherwise, you would have asked to see corrected plans?0
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It doesn't matter to me necessarily whether it's the estate agent/solicitor or the previous owners. I'm just not sure where I should start and whether I have a case.
Ashe it was very difficult at the time to get any answers from the previous owners about the neighbours extension plans. Asking them to get the neighbour to correct the plans would have required getting an architect to redraw them or the neighbours to change it which may have had an impact on planning permission. Either way this could have taken months, would have been rejected and would have meant we'd have lost the house.0 -
At the very least you want a party wall agreement drawn up.
Your neighbours should have known this from the outset.I'm a Forum Ambassador on The Coronavirus Boards as well as the housing, mortgages and student money saving boards. I volunteer to help get your forum questions answered and keep the forum running smoothly. Forum Ambassadors are not moderators and don't read every post. If you spot an illegal or inappropriate post then please report it to forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com (it's not part of my role to deal with this). Any views are mine and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.com.0 -
It doesn't matter to me necessarily whether it's the estate agent/solicitor or the previous owners. I'm just not sure where I should start and whether I have a case. .
it may make a difference as to the likelihood of getting paid, if you do have a case and winAshe it was very difficult at the time to get any answers from the previous owners about the neighbours extension plans. Asking them to get the neighbour to correct the plans would have required getting an architect to redraw them or the neighbours to change it which may have had an impact on planning permission. Either way this could have taken months, would have been rejected and would have meant we'd have lost the house.
So they don't actually have planning permission for what they are building as it doesn't match the plans?0 -
glentoran99 wrote: »it may make a difference as to the likelihood of getting paid, if you do have a case and win
How so out of curiosity?glentoran99 wrote: »So they don't actually have planning permission for what they are building as it doesn't match the plans?
They do, the plans match what they're building, its just the previous owners told us they confirmed with the neighbour that the wall was going up to the boundary line, not astride it. It's one of the conditions of our purchase as I mentioned.
It's only a difference of a few inches between up the wall being up to the boundary line and on it so I didn't think we needed new plans for that, just confirmation from the previous owners/neighbours.0 -
If they are building what they have planning permission for and you have seen the plans showing exactly what they are building before you bought your house, it doesn't really make sense that you've then asked a third party with no say on the plans to confirm something not shown on the plans!
Too late for party wall surveyors now the work has started so it's now down to you about how bad you want your relationship with the neighbours to be...0 -
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]What is the outcome that you want to achieve?
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Whether or not they have planning consent to straddle the boundary they still need your explicit consent, as current owner, to do so, that is unless they had some sort of contractual agreement with the previous owner which in some way bound subsequent owners.
[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I would not be too gentle on your neighbour and I suspect they deliberately did not discuss the matter with you, the new owner, hoping you will just roll over and believe their story when they started to build.[/FONT]0 -
If you have signed documentation surely someone from the previous owners etc and you are just going on the word of the neighbours it is upto you who you trust, sounds like someone has told porkies at some point and in all honesty I'd put it down to your neighbour if i was a betting man, being that your previous owners have actually signed something to say about the agreement and you are just hearing 2nd hand verbally what may or may not have been said between the 2 previous neighbours.0
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The ideal outcome really is for the neighbour to build within their own boundary. But what that means is they would need to knock down the wall they've started building and think of some way to build within the boundary. As I mentioned, the foundations are underneath where they're building now. I do not expect this will go down well with them, although they have at least discussed how it could work. I don't know where that cost would go.
We are also very frustrated with the previous owners and I think we should consider getting compensation for this. Despite some of you mentioning that we saw the plans and that should be enough, these things aren't always completely accurate which is why we asked for further details. Obviously these details were not correct.
Another thing to mention is we asked whether we could meet the neighbours before purchasing the property to discuss the extension plans and we were told by the estate agent/previous owners that we couldn't. I'm not sure why, but they promised they'd get the answers themselves.
Even so, I'm not sure we could force the neighbours at that time to put something in writing, our contract was always with the previous owners, not the neighbours.0
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