Buying subject to planning permission

linola_c

Hi All

We are looking to buy a site which currently has full planning permission on it for a 2 storey house (188m2) and garage (22m2). The site is located just outside the development boundary but in reality it sits in the urbal area - across from a national school. The current owner does not live locally and there is no occupancy clause on the permission granted and generally speaking, nothing concerning in the other conditions.

We would be looking to change the design of the house and make it (and the garage) bigger. We don't think it is necessary in the circumstances to make the sale subject to planning permission because of where the site is (i.e. a vacant field in an "urban area with rurual qualities" as per the planner's report) and the fact that there is no local needs requirements on the current planning. That said, we live next door and have done so for the past 3 years so i don't think we would have any difficulty establishing local needs, where it to become an issue.

We are very interested in buying and we are bidding at the moment. Would we be crazy to purchase without a subject to pp caveat? Would like to hear people's views on this.

Thanks
Linola

searay

linola_c wrote: »

Hi All

We are looking to buy a site which currently has full planning permission on it for a 2 storey house (188m2) and garage (22m2). The site is located just outside the development boundary but in reality it sits in the urbal area - across from a national school. The current owner does not live locally and there is no occupancy clause on the permission granted and generally speaking, nothing concerning in the other conditions.

We would be looking to change the design of the house and make it (and the garage) bigger. We don't think it is necessary in the circumstances to make the sale subject to planning permission because of where the site is (i.e. a vacant field in an "urban area with rurual qualities" as per the planner's report) and the fact that there is no local needs requirements on the current planning. That said, we live next door and have done so for the past 3 years so i don't think we would have any difficulty establishing local needs, where it to become an issue.

We are very interested in buying and we are bidding at the moment. Would we be crazy to purchase without a subject to pp caveat? Would like to hear people's views on this.

Thanks
Linola

I agreed to buy a house that had been built but not lived in, where they’d made some minor modifications which didn’t comply with the planning on a subject to planning basis. We had to apply in the vendors name.

Throughout the permission period we were concerned the vendor would decide not to sell. Then the council gave planning but included a requirement for the vendor to live in the house for 5 years. We managed to resolve with great difficulty but it looked like we had wasted almost 9 months in a planning process.

Seeking Planning in Ireland is full of uncertainty.

Based on my experience, I would only buy the site if I was happy to build with the existing planning permission and live in that house.

You could discuss what options you’d have post purchase with an architect such as internal changes, a new application or build and then extend. How much the build and fit out will cost have to be considered. A 2000 square foot house won’t be cheap.

From a vendors perspective, if there’s other potential buyers they’d be crazy to accept an offer subject to planning as it adds risk to the sale. They may have sought to build exactly the house you’d like but the planners didn’t allow them to.