Purchasing house with no planning permission for extension (old thread)

GOOSEANDGANDER

Hi there , I'm in the final stages of purchasing a house and as a result of my solicitors queries it has emerged that the vendors do not have planning permission for a single storey extension which was built over 30years ago. The mortgage bank are now deciding whether or not to loan us the money based on the architects certificate of compliance for the extension. Has anyone purchased a house with the same issue ? What is the banks response likely to be ?

Thanking you in advance.
Gooseandgander

RATM

I don't know what the banks response is likely to be but doubt it will be positive. But a sister of mine who is both a qualified solicitor and a barrister was in the same position as yourself a few years ago.

She went back for a third viewing of the house when the issue arose and started looking over the fences into the houses directly next door and beyond. She discovered that of 12 houses on the terrace only one other one had an extension to the original building. Now take from that what you will but in her mind the other one was probably illegal as well. As to why none of the others had one was beyond her but the worst case scenario was that they had applied for PP and the council refused.

Your best move OP is to instruct your solicitor to put a caveat in the contract to make the sale conditional on the vendor applying for and recieving retention planning permission for the extension (at their cost). Sign nothing until you have that on paper. Retention planning permission is granted by the council at their discretion so if you were to buy the house without it and then apply yourself then there is a risk the council could not only refuse it but also get a court order to force you to pull the extension down.

Put the risk fully on the vendor, don't accept any offers of discounts on the price to ignore it. The structure is currently illegal and the vendor may know something that you don't and is trying to sell you a red herring.



Edit- you say "over 30 years ago" - if it was built pre 1963 it might fall outside of current planning laws, ask your solicitor

fenris

Bear in mind that the planning enquiry could trigger a demand to remove the structure, which if you own the house will be your problem at your cost.

It is not unheard of for a property belonging to an "untouchable" of the recent government becoming fair game to the planners once that person no longer has an interest in the property.

I would suggest that if you are not going to walk away you at least ensure that the cost of demolition and restoration of the original structure of the house is deducted/held in bond until the situation is sorted out.

Teyla Emmagan

They may not have needed PP for the extension. Based on the amount of garden remaining and the size of what you're planning to build you may not need PP. And I think anything built prior to about 12 years ago is exempt from needing PP anyway, so you should be in the clear.

Marcusm

1. Your architect needs to establish if the extension is smaller than the limit for "exempted development"; if it is and the property is not a protected structure.

2. If the extension is larger or it is a protected structure, if it as been more than 7 years since the extension was built, it's status is unauthorised development but immune fron enforcement action (ie the local authority cannot force you to knock it down).

Even if unauthorised but immune due to the passing if time, the extension will never have planning permission per se and you might want to take this into account if you are considering further extensions or development requiring planning permission - your local authority could be awkward because of the past sines even though 30 years ago and done by a prior owner. I don't know that they would have any grounds to refuse retention permission if it's past the 7 year date.

Banks can be funny as the status will have to be explained by the solicitor on the title; they may have particular policies depending on the institution. Unauthorised but immune developments should not be any different from ones with full PP but they are.

I'm no expert, just had to deal with this on a pre 63 I was trying to buy. Ultimately I wanted a small discount for the issue, the vendor/bank decided to remarket. I suspect they'll be back to me.

Milk & Honey

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

And I think anything built prior to about 12 years ago is exempt from needing PP anyway, so you should be in the clear.

That is not correct. There is no forgiveness for not being PP compliant no matter how long it is there.

riclad

SEE HERE
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/planning_permission/planning_perm_altering_a_house.html

Building an extension to the rear of the house which does not increase the original floor area of the house by more than 40 square metres and is not higher than the house. The extension should not reduce the open space at the back of the house to less than 25 square metres which must be reserved exclusively for the use of the occupants of your house. If your house has been extended before, the floor area of the extension you are now proposing and the floor area of any previous extension (including those for which you previously got planning permission) must not exceed 40 square metres. (There are also other height restrictions.)

You should be able to measure the garden ,
and extension and work out is it exempt,from planning permission,
or get an architect s opinion.

ie if the open space at the rear is less than 25 sq metres
its not exempt from pp.

Supercell

I bought a house with something similar last year.
I went down to Dun Laoghaire Co Council planning department and asked them about it prior to buying. They said if the extension was up more than 12 years than they wouldn't be contesting it.
Our solicitor also wanted a certificate of compliance also which we got and we closed.

The_Conductor

There is no blanket forgiveness for developments on property without planning permission. Fingal Co.Co. and Wicklow Co.Co. will generally grant retrospective planning permission (aka they won't contest applications for retrospective planning permission) for developments that happened over 15 years ago. SDCC operate a non-contestation policy on developments over 12 years of age. GCC on developments over 20 years. It varies- you'll need to check this out. Its highly unlikely it'll be a planning issue- it could however be an issue with lending institutions- who will value the property without the benefit of the structure that doesn't have valid planning permission, and offer a mortgage on that basis.

A little more exploration needed here.

Milk & Honey

Supercell wrote: »

I bought a house with something similar last year.
I went down to Dun Laoghaire Co Council planning department and asked them about it prior to buying. They said if the extension was up more than 12 years than they wouldn't be contesting it.
Our solicitor also wanted a certificate of compliance also which we got and we closed.

The Council not taking enforcement action is not the same as saying that the extension has planning permission. The Council would not compensate you if the house was acquired by the in a compulsory purchase. Also, until you get retention any prospective purchaser of your house may not be happy and you could lose a sale.

GOOSEANDGANDER

Supercell wrote: »

I bought a house with something similar last year.
I went down to Dun Laoghaire Co Council planning department and asked them about it prior to buying. They said if the extension was up more than 12 years than they wouldn't be contesting it.
Our solicitor also wanted a certificate of compliance also which we got and we closed.

Thanks for all the replies.
Just to clarify supercell did your lending institution sign off on the loan to you even with the pp issue? Thanks

Supercell

GOOSEANDGANDER wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies.
Just to clarify supercell did your lending institution sign off on the loan to you even with the pp issue? Thanks

There was no problems with the loan, our solicitor says this comes up a lot and that as long as there was a certificate of compliance from the architect it didn't make any difference. I checked with the local planning office to check myself because I was afraid of there being problems down the line and they were equally disinterested as long as it was over 12 years ago they said its there would be no contest and not to worry about it.

I think that as long as the solicitor is happy then everyone is happy, at least that's the impression I got during the process.

Marcusm

For some reason, posters continue to refer to 12 years. I have no idea why as the immunity arises after 7 years. See below extract from a paper by Arthur Cox (leading law firm) on the matter. OP can you let us know what the situation is with the house you're considering.


Seven Year Immunity Rule
For different reasons, both developers and local authorities will be very familiar with the seven year immunity rule. This rule provides that non-exempted developments carried out either: (i) without planning permission; or (ii) otherwise than in accordance with planning permission, is immune from prosecution after a seven year period has passed. Up until the 2010 Act, this rule applied equally to all types of unauthorised developments. However, this rule has now been specifically dis-applied in the case of quarrying operations and peat extraction. Therefore, a Warning Letter/Enforcement Notice and/or proceedings may be issued/commenced against these developments at any time. This provision is not yet in force and no date has been given for its commencement.

GOOSEANDGANDER

Marcusm wrote: »

For some reason, posters continue to refer to 12 years. I have no idea why as the immunity arises after 7 years. See below extract from a paper by Arthur Cox (leading law firm) on the matter. OP can you let us know what the situation is with the house you're considering.


Seven Year Immunity Rule
For different reasons, both developers and local authorities will be very familiar with the seven year immunity rule. This rule provides that non-exempted developments carried out either: (i) without planning permission; or (ii) otherwise than in accordance with planning permission, is immune from prosecution after a seven year period has passed. Up until the 2010 Act, this rule applied equally to all types of unauthorised developments. However, this rule has now been specifically dis-applied in the case of quarrying operations and peat extraction. Therefore, a Warning Letter/Enforcement Notice and/or proceedings may be issued/commenced against these developments at any time. This provision is not yet in force and no date has been given for its commencement.

Thanks for that. The vendors have decided to rely upon the statutory provision which prevents the local authority from issuing enforcement proceedings. They have provided our solicitor with a recent architects cert of compliance but our solicitor has passed this on to the bank so that they can decide whether or not to loan to us for the property without planning permission. As a result we are wondering what the banks response is likely to be as we are eager to close as soon as possible and we are concerned they will refuse to loan to us based on this pp issue.

fenris

You also need to consider whether you will want to do anyyhing to the property in the future that will require planning permission.

Not being required to tear down the extension because of the seven year rule practice does not mean that you will be on equal footing for planning applications going forward.

Unless it is properly resolved with your local planners, there will always be an irregularity with the property including the day that you want to sell it on, maybe an very similar series of posts from your potential buyer!

Again make sure that this is reflected in the price you are paying, you are buying a property with an unresolved problem - assuming that you go ahead regardless.

Supercell

OP if you have a certificate of compliance and the extension is past the 7 or 12 year limit (whatever is applicable to your house's area) then I'd say it wont have any impact on your loan application, it certainly didn't have any on mine (We got our loan from BOI by the way).
Personally I wouldn't worry about future sales either, future buyers will encounter the same, be told the same and will end up buying all the same as this really isn't material in the end as nobody is going to make you tear it down, end of story.

fenris

Have to disagree there, given two candidate properties, most rational people will pass on the problem property.

Planning is so hair-brained and fickle at the best of times even when everything is correct, the last thing you want to take on is a property that you puts you at a serious disadvantage when/if you want to make changes in the future.

We have both bought and sold in the last month so the though processes and advice received both professional and otherwise is still quite fresh.

Any irregularity at all can jeopardise your mortgage approval, any recent mortgage offers contain a clause whereby the bank reserves the right to revalue the property right up to the moment you get the cheque, if the value of the property not longer meets the banks criteria or raises the risk profile then you are off for another lap of the buying/mortgage cycle.

From a buyer perspective you have to present a very low risk profile to the bank in every way, if you take on a property with a planning irregularity then you are limiting your future ability to sell to persons who either will never want to do anything with the house or to persons who will knock a lump off of the purchase price to compensate.

riclad

Ask the seller, to get a cert of compliance from architect, saying extension is ok,
and a letter from council saying they will take no action in future to remove the extension since its there x time, eg 20 years plus,
ARCHITECT should check, is it compliant with building regs.
if bank gets these 2 documents ,they,ll probably give you a loan,
if extension is small it may not need planning permission.

GOOSEANDGANDER

riclad wrote: »

Ask the seller, to get a cert of compliance from architect, saying extension is ok,
and a letter from council saying they will take no action in future to remove the extension since its there x time, eg 20 years plus,
ARCHITECT should check, is it compliant with building regs.
if bank gets these 2 documents ,they,ll probably give you a loan,
if extension is small it may not need planning permission.

Hi all , thanks for all replies. Received notice from mortgage bank today . No issue with the planning so closing date next week!

Cheers Gooseandgander

Supercell

Congrats, now to start planning colour schemes and suchlike

Fifty

Hi supercell !
I read your comments from last year, very useful. I am running into the same problem
Do you have the name of the solicitor which helped you with this and ideally the BOI branch where you got the mortgage (do you have a name of the branch manager)?
Thanks !

BryanF

Fifty
It's up to the seller of the house to rectify any planning descrepancies. The 7 year 'council can't tear down' approach does not mean the house is 'legal' and due diligence by future solicitors/ engineers will flag this. So you're best to get the current owner to sort this out. Why transfer the headache to yourself? unless of course you use it as a price bargaining tool.

GOOSEANDGANDER

Hi, the house I bought has an extension which was built 30 years ago and no pp. I got a cert of compliance from engineer and although the solicitor raised this issue with the mortgage bank they had no problem based on the cert of compliance we had for it. Gooseandgander

Victor

BryanF wrote: »

The 7 year 'council can't tear down' approach

There has been a hardening of attitudes on this over the last couple of years. While they can't prosecute you after the 7 years, they can insist on compliance.