Neighbours ruined sale of site

Peppapiggy

Hi all

I’ll try cut a very long story short but my husband is estranged from his parents for very serious reasons. Anyway he was selling a site next to their house. They can’t even view into it with the size of their hedge and it’s on a cul de sac etc. It’s perfect. We got a buyer and they were excited to apply. However my husbands father had threatened him when he put it for sale that he would be objecting to the house build etc and he didn’t want a house on the site next to him. Nice man...
So the couple informed us that they were pulling out of the site as they had been approached by his parents while they were out viewing the site recently. My husbands parents told the couple that they were going to object to their house and there was a dispute between us and god knows what else but the big issue is is that they told the couple that there was a “problem with the land” basically insinuating that it is not legally ours or whatever. This is nonsense. I just wonder if anyone has any experience of this type of thing and legally what we can do about the neighbours/ parents. I’m waiting to hear back from our solicitor. It feels like they are waging a campaign to destroy us like they said they would. (They have been covering up for the man who abused my husband as a child. Hence the dispute and the file is with the authorities just recently)

ANXIOUS

Peppapiggy wrote: »

Hi all

I’ll try cut a very long story short but my husband is estranged from his parents for very serious reasons. Anyway he was selling a site next to their house. They can’t even view into it with the size of their hedge and it’s on a cul de sac etc. It’s perfect. We got a buyer and they were excited to apply. However my husbands father had threatened him when he put it for sale that he would be objecting to the house build etc and he didn’t want a house on the site next to him. Nice man...
So the couple informed us that they were pulling out of the site as they had been approached by his parents while they were out viewing the site recently. My husbands parents told the couple that they were going to object to their house and there was a dispute between us and god knows what else but the big issue is is that they told the couple that there was a “problem with the land” basically insinuating that it is not legally ours or whatever. This is nonsense. I just wonder if anyone has any experience of this type of thing and legally what we can do about the neighbours/ parents. I’m waiting to hear back from our solicitor. It feels like they are waging a campaign to destroy us like they said they would. (They have been covering up for the man who abused my husband as a child. Hence the dispute and the file is with the authorities just recently)

Apply for permission yourself and then sell site with permission.

Peppapiggy

I didn’t think we could get permission as we already have a house down the road from it. I think you need to have a housing need these days

ANXIOUS wrote: »

Apply for permission yourself and then sell site with permission.

Grab All Association

Outline permission?

It’s where a potential buyer applies for permission before purchasing

Fann Linn

It's never happened to me personally but I do know of a case where a couple were selling a house and the antagonists did everything in their power including piling silage adjacent to a boundary wall, digging cuts in land to let water build up outside the house, leaving machinery and trailers everywhere around the curtilage and acting in an agressive manner with dogs barking etc when people appeared to view the house.

You won't believe it but I heard that in the end the couple sold the house for minimum price to the aggressors as other prospective buyers were frightened or didn't want to invest beside some nasty people.

Good luck.

jimmycrackcorm

Peppapiggy wrote:

I didn’t think we could get permission as we already have a house down the road from it. I think you need to have a housing need these days

If you can't get permission then you're going to find it very difficult to sell regardless as you'd be restricted by local housing needs.

But there's nothing stopping you from applying for and getting permission on the basis that it was for yourselves. For example, If you are splitting up and your husband decided he wanted to build there and you remained in your current house.

The important thing is that they're can't be objections once permission is granted.

brian_t

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

But there's nothing stopping you from applying for and getting permission on the basis that it was for yourselves.
The important thing is that they're can't be objections once permission is granted.

But if you then sell the site - that planning permission won't transfer to the new owners.

davo10

A ruling last year in Belgium made many of the terms of local and national development plans discriminatory.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/housesoftheoireachtas/libraryresearch/lrsnotes/EU-Law-and-Local-Residency.pdf

GerardKeating

davo10 wrote: »

A ruling last year in Belgium made many of the terms of local and national development plans discriminatory.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/parliament/media/housesoftheoireachtas/libraryresearch/lrsnotes/EU-Law-and-Local-Residency.pdf

You mean like they ruled that VRT was illegal.

jimmycrackcorm

brian_t wrote:

But if you then sell the site - that planning permission won't transfer to the new owners.

Planning is attached to the site. Many, if not almost all, sites have been sold on the basis that planning is guaranteed.

Who's going to buy a site that might only be useful for grazing sheep.

fritzelly

brian_t wrote: »

But if you then sell the site - that planning permission won't transfer to the new owners.

Sorry but confused, if the land was granted permission for building a house why would that not transfer? It's not an extension to an existing building
But then I am assuming there is planning for an house that will not change dramatically...

Robbo

GerardKeating wrote: »

You mean like they ruled that VRT was illegal.

One of the great legal urban myths. Aspects around calculation methods and leased cars have caused issue but VRT is fundamentally sound.

brian_t

fritzelly wrote: »

Sorry but confused, if the land was granted permission for building a house why would that not transfer? It's not an extension to an existing building
But then I am assuming there is planning for an house that will not change dramatically...

Risks involved in somebody else building under planning permission that is not theirs

Mrs OBumble

Keep the site. Lease it to the local council for Traveller specific accommodation.


Or at least let the neighbourhood whispering tree convey to the parents that this is what you intend to do.

fritzelly

brian_t wrote: »

Risks involved in somebody else building under planning permission that is not theirs

Not the same scenario so why are you quoting it

davo10

GerardKeating wrote: »

You mean like they ruled that VRT was illegal.

I mean like planning offices have been instructed they must comply.

NUTLEY BOY

Does the conduct of the parents not constitute malicious falsehood as per S.42 Defamation Act 2009 ?
Link http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/31/section/42/enacted/en/html#sec42

Presumably OP's solicitor will be considering this and a few other matters. It might be worth threatening the "offenders" with legal proceedings on the basis that their actions are causing an actionable loss and that if you succeed you will be registering a judgment mortgage against their property if they don't give it a rest.

Metric Tensor

Local needs clauses allow planning permission on sites where otherwise no planning permission at all would be allowed.

So if the local needs clause is removed any site that currently would achieve planning permission under this clause will not get any permission at all and hence will be farmland.

Sadly OP I don't have any ideas on what you might do short of applying for outline permission which may or may not work but you will still have the same issues when you go to sell.