Planning permission nightmare - Advice please !

[Planningpermissionnightmare]

Hello,

My family and I live on a new build estate in the South of England.

We had a large strip of land attached to our property that wasn't in use so inquired about purchasing the land. At this stage the land was still owned by the developers ( For ex: Bovis, Taylor Wimpey etc) and after a few months of negotiations we came to an agreement.

I instructed our near by solicitors (explaining that we wanted to purchase a piece of land as additional garden space for our family) and purchased the land for £10,000 ( +£2K for solicitor fees on both sides).

A few weeks later we decided to fence our new land at a price of £4,000.

The day the works finished, someone from the council came to our house to let us know that we needed planning permission to change the use of the land. ( We had been reported anonymously by our neighbours!)

I contacted my solicitors immediately who told me to sit tight whilst they double checked it all. ( this was over a month ago!)

Today the council contacted me again to confirm that the land is considered to be informal open space and was considered part of an ecological and wildlife buffer zone and PP to change it to residential use will never be approved and that we must tear down our fence.
We will also never be able to use our new land as a garden.

So we have spent £16,000 for nothing.
I am furious at our useless solicitors (and the developer) never alerted us to any of this.

Will they reimburse me for all this money spent unnecessarily?

Any advice greatly appreciated please !

At this point we are here:

The partner said over a week ago that he would email a formal letter to the developer as we 'have a claim against them'+ apply for an extension to the council as we only have 28 days to tear down our fence.

Today I received an email from the council saying that they hadn't heard from us ( as I assumed our solicitor would get in touch) and they would have to seek legal action soon, did we not get in touch.

Our solicitor told me last week he still hadnt been able to speak to our original solicitor to find out what had been going on ( its been a month).

No letter to the D. or extension to the council was sent and the partner has now left of holiday and is ignoring my emails.

Ive tried to get in touch w the Developer too but they are ignoring me.

Im so angry!

I can’t see how the developer could be at fault - caveat emptor. Did your solicitor explain?

Professional negligence on the part of the solicitor looks likely. I’m not a property lawyer but surely checking current vs. proposed use is basic due diligence in a land purchase.

I would say you need to take legal advice from a solicitor specialising in professional negligence. You can search on the Law Society’s website.

There might not be a quick resolution to this. I was purchasing a property where an issue like this was uncovered (a previous solicitor of the vendor was totally incompetent). It took a year to resolve, with the vendors solicitor, previous solicitor and a developer all arguing amongst themselves until a resolution was found. It went through eventually though.