The ins and outs of retrospective pp and legal indemnity coverage explained.
From a helpful advice forum:
'It depends exactly what work your Solicitor has done (if any).
These things come up quite often ..your Solicitor notes there's an extension and asks the current owner for copies of the planning permission...
Needless to say, if the house has changed hands a few time, current owners know nothing about the Extn. and don't have paperwork ..
So the questions you have to ask are :-
- Does it NEED planning permission ??
- If it's needed, was Permission applied for & granted when it was built ? (have to ask local council for this)
- If didn't have permission, can retrospective permission be granted now ?
Reasons why you might not want to dig too much ..
a) the extension might not meet some obscure regulation and the council will refuse permission and demand you modify it or demolish it (for example, some older cottages had quite low ceilings .. there is now a minimum height .. but chances are any extension will have been built with the same ceiling height as existing rooms)
b) if you discover any problems (a), you will have to inform the Mortgage company and they may reduce or even withdraw your Mortgage offer ..
c) if the Local Council was unaware of the extension (but it's OK), they will revalue the property and this might push it up into the next Council Tax band ..
Reason why you DO want to dig ..
a) when you come to sell, the buyer is going to be asking exactly the same questions you are asking ...'
-- Here the writer seems not to care as much about the planning process as the financial aspect of the planning process. This smacks of cynicism to me.
On temporary buildings and rpp from a company that rents out temporary buildings:
'Depending upon how long you plan to have your temporary building on site, it may well have come and gone before the planning officer is even aware you?ve had one....
...You should obtain permission. However, you can have the building installed, and then make a retrospective application, if the planning officer asks you to do so.
And this is the way the vast majority of our customers go about it. Because if you make the application before you have the building installed, it can and most probably will, take months and months - time you probably do not have?
And given the majority of people who hire our buildings generally need it without delay, you probably won't have the time to wait for the endless delays of the planning process.'
-- Expediency? Cynicism? A practical solution to a problem that arises when planning offices fail to take account that time constraints affect certain industries? The red tape issue is also illustrated by the wendy house lunacy you mentioned.
Drawing and Planning Ltd. offers rpp consulting services:
'Residential C3 (Flat or house) Retrospective Planning Package Includes:
Existing elevations
Existing floor plans
Photo Survey identifying changes made
Design and Access statement (conservation report if necessary)
Site plan
Ordnance Survey (OS) map
Aerial Photos
Submission of a retrospective planning application'
"call now for a free retrospective planning consultation"
Low impact woodland house/ council and neighbours turning a blind eye...
'..our planning departments do not have a general remit to enforce against unpermitted development, only to process applications and follow up on complaints. This is a significant retention of liberty and common sense. If I get a piece of land and build a monstrous palace which I use as a base for having excessively loud parties, my neighbours will probably complain to the council who will demand a retrospective application which they'd refuse and then serve an enforcement order for me to demolish the building. On the other hand, if I build a modest and discreet house on a piece of land somewhere and if all my neighbours have no problem with what I am doing, the need to make a planning application will not arise. In this case, after 10 years the building and change of use will be eligible for a certificate of lawful use, meaning a planning application is not needed. If there is not a change of use, lawful use is granted after 4 years....I would currently recommend development followed by a retrospective application as required, preferably in Pembrokeshire, as the best approach for individual or groups wishing start a new low impact living project.'
-- In other words:'What the council doesn't know won't hurt it' ??
Many posters on this forum discussing their exp of rpp across five pages.
These issues tend to come up as a potential problem when property goes on the market, whereas when the owners were living their daily lives in the properties nobody was any the wiser about the various modifications, etc. -- indicating that what can be gleaned from various fora on the matter is just the tip of the iceberg and that there is plenty of ignoring of the planning process going on.
Asa mentioned earlier, insurance companies offer legal indemnity policies without batting an eyelid.
Cynical? That is in the eye of the beholder, as your post implies, Lesley -- you do not find anything cynical in the examples you found. But if you don't accept the term cynical when applied to homeowners and businesses or to businesses making money from clients who have decided to go this route, why is 'cynical' ok to use in reference to Travellers' use of retrospective pp, when Travellers know their pp applications before building are going to be turned down 90% of the time? Why does the beholder find cynicism in what the Travellers do and not what others do?