I am not unreasonable, but I do need to rant and have sympathy and advice, so am posting here...........ARGH about the planning people!!!!

[psychomum5]

We have been given some money from DH's late grandma to do our house up a bit.

We have chosen to replace the crumbling lean-to conservatory on the side of the house and make it bigger and to include a futility room.

Soooooooooo, we had plans and drawings made and put them in for planning.....

all well and good you might think??!!

Not so...........

Today we received a letter. In said letter it says that planning is to be discussed (there are orange signs up for people to know about and object if they so wish) at the end of the month, but they have seen from the drawings that there is already a rear extension and it does not have covenance (sp?).....

We did not understand this, so DH rang when he got home from work.....

Well, seems that even tho we bought our house as it is, 12yrs ago, and it went thro all the checks etc as is normal for such a sale, it seems to have slipped everybodies notice that the rear extension on our house was put up without planning

and it was built over 18yrs ago, by the first occupants, and has been sold twice since!!!

It has also had the current conservatory there for that time too, we are just asking to replace and extend it slightly, and as DH is a bricklayer/builder, and it is going slightly closer to the road (we live on a corner), he knew we needed planning.

but now this........

so

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

The world has pissed me off good and proper now

we don;t know where we stand now, the council are completely confused that we had managed to BUY the house like this (I think they thought we had built it on ourselves and are just stupid enough to try to get planning for the conservatory)

so, anyone have any idea where we may stand???

and how likely is it that we will have to pull our house apart to return it to what is should be???

or do we just apply for planning in reverse?? No-one seemed to know earlier on the phone as they just seemed stunned that we had bought it like it and had lived here for 12yrs without anyone noticing (and belive me, you can;t NOT notice).

well at least they are on your side sometimes they can make these things more stressfull, our neighbour objected to our house being built (we are going to build in my parents huge garden, well we are if they let us) she wrote a letter compalining about things that wont even be a factor. she hadnt even read the plans, just objected about things she thought were going to affect her.

anyway keep us informend with whats happening.

As long as you've got proof it's been there 4 years or more, they definitely can't take any action.

Yes, that's the worst case scenario - if you just replaced like with like, the impact of the extension on neighbouring amenities would be negligible, therefore don't see how they could refuse. But that's not to say you couldn't put an application in for something bigger if you wanted. General rule of thumb for your regular terrace property is no more than 3m high, or 3m long, but again that depends what you've got either side of you, and we used to grant permission for things which took up half the garden, so it really depends on whether it's going to have a negative impact on neighbours amenity (of course that's completely subjective and down to the planning dept's view in the end).
Oh you live on a corner, so that's only one neighbour you've got to worry about! Guess the other thing would be what would it look like from the road, if it's being built down the side of the road - so as long as it's not too high (3.2 - 3.3 max I should think), should be ok!

well we have a 6ft wall all down the side and back of our house, and the way DH is planning to re-build (he is doing this luckily, being in 'the trade'), it won;t be higher than the wall.......it will help with no-one being able to see in, and us out either IYGWIM.

BUT, the side wall is going to be 'kind of' used in the extension.....we are going almost completely up to it bar about 6" (well, enough room to ensure that the gutter and drains are still on our side of the wall and not going onto the pavement).

It currently has 2ft between conservatory and wall.

so, we are hoping to extend towards the road, and along the side as well, by about 5ft.

Sounds fine to me (wish I could have a look at the plans for you, to give you better advice).

Don't know anyone in Bournemouth Council otherwise I'd try and get it fast-tracked for you!!

lol at there being a bribes department - wish there was - if we ever got a gift (from an architect, or a house builder or whatever) which was more than £10 in value, we had to give it back. Not a job if you're looking for perks!

We had to pay £70 for an insurance policy regarding our windows when we bought our house. The previous owners had put new windows in and built a conservatory, but hadn't had a council inspection to say they were ok.

They had a choice then to either let the council inspect them there and then, or for us to get the insurance policy. One of the conditions of this policy, is that we don't tip off the council and get them to inspect them anyway I don't get all this sort of thing.

Retrospective planning consent... poor you.

jawjaw....it is online to view.........would you like to see??

email me at psychomum @ gmail . com (no spaces), and I can link you.

I would do link here, only it has our address on!!!

hi Im an architect doing a lot of residential extensions in London and intrigued by your story which was some time ago but Ive only just read it- what was the outcome of your dilemma?