To be suspicious of this (on the surface of it) friendly note?

[Genx77]

So, the house next door has sold, it's been empty for 2 years as the elderly previous resident is now in a care home.
It's a big house (6 beds) needs a good amount of work to make it habitable.
Today I receive a gushing 'notelet' on expensive personalised stationary in the post from the new owner of the house. To summarise he states he is so sorry not to have met us in person, he will clear his schedule at our earliest convenience to meet up in our home to discuss 'a few planning permission queries'
Hmm, on the surface friendly, husband thinks I'm nuts, that it's nice he's introducing himself instead of just cracking on.

Would I be cynical to presume he can't just 'crack on' because in fact he needs our permission to carry out any works on the house as these works will affect us/our home in some way? We are currently not overlooked as any windows onto our property are bathrooms, would he need planning permission to change these?

Ponder away with me mumsnetters, I'm waiting for him to call me back!

My mate successfully objected to the house opposite his being turned into an HMO on the grounds of there not being enough parking, no room for additional wheelie bins and because of the general disturbance to a quiet street mostly populated by families.

It does ineedabody but it wasn't there when the OP bought her house and it may impact on her ability to re-sell or on her property value. The other issue is that once the garage is changed to residential then, at a later date or even with this planning application, the developer can apply to increase the footprint of the garage building so it grows in size, it looks into Op's garden and potentially it block other windows and light too.

He might need access to your land to do work on his?

Ours is family home so the objection to the extra cars lolled silly on the face of it BUT we could have four teens so six cars on the drive.

It could have worked for the person who objected - but they don't realise how far our boundary extends hence how many cars we can park on our land.

I don't know who objected either so you could even object on all your neighbors behalf

Realistically, there won't be 8 cars, probably won't even be one car.

You're right. I'm sure all these professionals he is letting to won't have a single car between them.

Or even have visitors who turn up in cars!

If someone can only afford a room in a house-share, it's unlikely they can afford to run a car. These types of house-shares are usually for people who have just moved to England and are looking for their first job, until they can find somewhere on their own. Just look on spareroom.co.uk. Very few house-shares offer parking, as nobody has a need for it!

And there will be very few visitors too (NONE), to an already overcrowded house, with the only communal areas left being the bathroom(s) and kitchen!

There is a huge difference between not offering parking (because there isn't any, just the road) and there actually being no car.

Some councils use HMO's to house the homeless and/or as temp lodging for the homeless. A private LL can chose to rent the rooms out to the council. Or let to students.

So, soupdragon - you anticipate 8 docs rocking up in their mercs all to take up residence in this new house-share?

Suppose they'd be handy in an emergency. A choice of 8 doctors and 8 vehicles to transport you to hospital!

OP - if ever the need arises - go for the doc in the garage. He'll probably be a consultant - able to afford a whole garden shed. Probably have the biggest nicest car too!

I'll just knock on the windows redroses!! To be honest it's those in the house i feel sorry for, I've got 2 very loud small boys and 3 dogs who I've never had to keep quiet before now and man, can they bark. The dogs, not the children.....

We have frosted glass on one side of our detatched house and clear glass I the other. Apparently all houses in our street follow this 'rule' so no one is overlooked at close quarters. Neighbour on my clear glass side is doing a lot of work and came around to say she's putting in a large clear glass window on our side! But kindly wanted to check with us first. I invited her into my kitchen and showed her how we would totally lose privacy if she did and hence no we are not happy with this. She then told me about the 'rule' (I didn't know until this point) and that council won't actually allow her to put in clear glass unless we agreed. And she didn't want to put clear glass and then have to remove it on account of complaints from us as it would be expensive to replace. Well, our answer was polite but firm.

We've been extra nice to her ever since so that she knows what she might stand to lose (nice neighbour like us!) is she went against our wishes.

Can you check with your council ?

I would plant a Buddleia in front of that window now