I'm going to try to keep this brief; in 2014 we had a boundary dispute with the next door neighbour. Our kitchen wall was attached to their boundary wall, it had been like this for decades and had been rebuilt by the previous owners several years before, we saw the paperwork she had agreed but there was no Party Wall agreement (and yes we know that we should never have bought the house based on this)
We had a leak which was due to failing flashing on the wall. We offered to pay as it would fix our leak. She agreed verbally but the roofer wanted the agreement in writing as it was her wall. We asked her for this and from then on it escalated. We were accused of attaching our kitchen to her wall- consent denied. She told us to remove our attachment, we couldn't it was a single skin extension using her wall so she threatened to pull the wall down. The Police said it was a civil matter, the Party Wall act said it was not a party wall the Council said she could pull her wall down if she wanted, the solicitors said she could withdraw consent for attachment if she wanted.
So she pulled her wall down and we had to go through Planning, and rebuild our kitchen at a cost of about £20,000.
Now here is my question. I've seen the following quoted on Mumsnet two times this week- Demolishing a boundary fence, wall or other means of enclosure is permitted development under class B, Part 31 of Schedule 2 of the General Permitted Development Order. However, on 1 October 2013 this provision was amended to exclude boundary walls in conservation areas.
This means that if the owner of a building in a conservation area wants to demolish, in whole or in part,
“any gate, fence, wall or other means of enclosure”.
This means, in conservation areas, building owners must first seek planning permission before they can demolish a party wall or party fence wall, or even a garden fence, even if all the other works are permitted development.
Our house was Grade II in a Conservation zone, the Planning Department must have known about the Legal change and yet they did nothing to stop her. The Legal change was never pointed out to me by any of the official bodies we dealt with and obviously her actions affected no-one but us.
What would happen if I complain to the Planning Department that they allowed her to knowingly break the law- they came and inspected and allowed her to carry on?