Problem with neighbour's extension

[Upnorth123]

We moved into our dream home last October. We didn't see anything of one of our neighbours until relatively recently but were reassured when then introduced themselves that they were very friendly. The problems began around 6 weeks ago when they started to remove their existing conservatory and build a huge extension. It covers the full length of their semi- detached house and is around 3.7m in height.
The issue is that the side wall which has just gone up of comes within 70cm of our shared boundary with the 3.7m high wall and the fact it extends around 6m out from the rear of the house casting a shadow over our living room window.
We received no notification of the extension from the neighbour, the previous owner or our solicitor. Nothing at all. They obtained planning permission for the development in 2015. The previous owner (a dear old lady) mentioned they had shown her plans but assured here the new extension would be no higher than the old conservatory - it is and is significantly higher.
Now that we have inspected the plans there is no indication of the height of the construction other than mention of a 2m high window going along the back of the extension.
We are contacting planning tomorrow. Does anyone have any idea if we have any legal grounds to complain, have the extension reduced in a size a little? It clearly says on the land that all planning is subject to neighbour consultation - we had nothing but are worried that the previous owner who had long since left before the building started may have been cajoled into giving consent in some way.
Any help would be much appreciated.

Have you spoken to your solicitors?

I would be asking planning and building control what can be done, right now, as you and they now know that the building is not being built according to the plans.

Get something in writing to them today - so you can write 'further to your phonecall today to confirm that planning permission was granted for the wall to be a maximum of 3.4m tall and it is already 30cm taller than this and is not yet finished...' so they can see that you are on this as soon as you are aware of the problem and they can't claim that there wasn't time to do anything.

Then ask what can be done - bonkersly apparently Building Control only have to check that the building is built safely, they don't have to check that it conforms with the plans approved - and state that you would like them to ensure that the extension is not built any taller than has been given permission for.

Finally - get paper copies out but also email it to the council, the planning department (your contact if possible and any councillor responsible for planning), building control, your local parish councillor (either / or /both the one for your ward or responsible for planning locally), your neighbours and their builders - basically anyone that could possibly have an input into this.

Include the neighbours so they know you're onto them - and the builders so they can't claim they didn't realise there was a problem. Get the local and parish councillors on board to help. See if any of them can do anything now - while it's possible for them to take several layers of brick off rather than when they've got the roof on and it's all much more difficult and expensive.

A friend has been battling her local council as someone's built a new house in the garden behind them. She knew it was going to be built - but the house that's been built is 3m higher than it should be and nearly 3m closer to the fence than it should be and the whole building is wider than it was on the plans. Dreadful. And although they've managed to slow things down, they haven't managed to get it rebuilt as it was supposed to have been, they're having to negotiate to get any changes. Unfortunately as councils get strapped for cash, they don't have the money to cover the legal costs of if the developer appeals to have planning permission granted retrospectively even when they don't grant it initially which gives other developers a green light to go ahead and build what they want, regardless of the permission they actually got . This has been going on for years now.

So please try to do something asap otherwise you will be regretting it a long time.

Sounds like it could well be permitted development.

Build a huge extension yourself as a revenge build. Revenge building is a thing, right?

I agree with all of the above

Something has just occurred to me could you tell neighbours that you would like the wall painted white/cream or whatever then instead of the red bricks sucking light away you are reflecting the light towards you so hopefully make your rooms less dark

What you think?

I am confused as to whether you knew about this before you bought i.e did the nice old lady tell you
If so did you tell your solicitor

If you knew about did you ask your solicitor to check it out
Did the seller disclose it in the property questionnaire
If it didn't show up on the Property search and was not disclosed by the seller and you did not tell the solicitor then I am not sure how the solicitor could be expected to check it
Make it as official as you can with the council

They can be pests for approving things retrospectively