Grade 2 listed house

[Lilliepixie]

Has anyone owned one?
I need to find out if it's likely that I could knock down an interior wall and possibly some old outbuildings and replace with a new garage.
I've looked on council website and the planning decisions vary. One was refused permission to replace windows?
One was allowed an extension after 3/4 applications!
Any experience?
I'm looking to buy it, it's been in the market a while.
It's completely renovated, absolutely beautiful, I would just want to open up the kitchen/living room

Ime (and I have a grade II listed property) it depends on the local authority. Mine is in a London borough known for being picky. I couldn’t replace the front door (a Homebase-type bog standard) with a period one, without listed building consent.

I spoke to the heritage and conservation officer and I would have been very unlikely to get permission that changed the main fabric of the building but would have been ok to redo the 70’s extension. Probably.

I think for the level of work you have planned you should speak to the relevant council officer. You may have to pay for a consultation.

Otherwise being listed doesn’t have to be a massive pain but you can’t do things like just drill a hole through the outside wall to put cable TV and broadband in, without getting the relevant consents.

Try asking on period property forum.

Why don’t you speak to the planning officer who deals with listed buildings in your area? No-one will know the exact answer here. We don’t know the house or the planning authority. That interior wall may be a crowning glory for all we know!

Speak to the local conservation person. Be prepared for the possible extra cost (c.1.7k for a small house) of a specialist doing a heritage and impact assessment. I do these for living and they can be useful when doing a planning application.

I would say pm me details and I'll take a look but I am horrendously busy for the next 3 weeks with charity stuff.

I'm just looking for experiences Bubbles, not really an exact answer!

Its not that simple Lillie. One council will say 100% No, one will say 100% yes and some just seem to make random decisions. It really will depend on the local conversation person (who you should just be able to call) and the particular house.

My particular experience was permission to have a sizeable extension, permission to renew windows at the rear with DG (not the front) permission to remove a single brick garage and put in a oak car port, permission to remove a wall between the utility and boiler room. All these things are often refused. But then NO permission to remove a wall between kitchen and dning room (as it was the original wall and it would make the kitchen unusually large for that period).

Thanks Sunny, that's what I'm worried about. If they are concerned about maintaining the house as it would have been used then and not accepting the move towards more modern open plan living.
If the other option is an extension that's ok, but I don't need to make more space, the house is massive already.

As Sunnyshores says, Listed Building Consent is about the only area of regulation where it is totally down to the whim of the Conservation Officer. You could get a totally opposite response depending on which Conservation Officer you were allocated.

Unfortunately in many authorities, Conservation Officers will not talk to you unless you pay for pre-application advice (in my authority it is £150), which is frustrating for you. But if you are serious about the house and being allowed to do the work would be a deal-breaker for you, then worth paying to get the advice.

BTW, Heritage and Impact statements do not have to cost £1.7 K - we did ours ourselves for free! There is a difference between the level of detail and sophistication the authority expects from a householder wishing to remove a wall in a cottage, versus what they would expect from a company turning a mill into flats. Pre-app advice would tell you what information you needed to include with your application.

You could look at why it was listed in the first place. This gives a narrative about the house and you can see what is considered special and what will need to be preserved.

If, for example, it is an excellent example of a farmhouse in your area with typical room layout and features that need to be preserved, I would not have thought you would be allowed to make alterations to the size of the rooms by knocking walls down. It would then not be a the same house that was listed and that may well be the key issue.

Very often owners of listed houses can take a long time negotiating with the Heritage officers over tiny details so just asking for experience here will not be useful because it cannot be. Each officer and property is different.

If you love a listed house you have to embrace its quirks and live in it the way it was intended but with a nod to modern life.

It's one of an entire row.
Historical and architectural interest.
The walls and the gate posts are listed separately

There is absolutely no way to know what is going to be allowed, even the convservation officer may say yes today if you speak to her, then leave her job and be replaced by one that says no. Is having an open plan kitchen diner really a dealbreaker? How about a large serving hatch or widening a door? That may be permissable.

Can you ask the seller if they asked to do a more open plan renovation? Can you look on rightmove sold records and see the inside of any of the others? Knock on a few doors?

And to add to the fun, I don't think 'precedent' is a valid argument for listed building consent, so even if someone in the terrace has previously got listed building consent to remove a wall, if you apply and get refused, the argument that permission was given to someone else for the same would be dismissed at appeal.

Only buy it if you can (worse-case scenario) live with it as it stands!

It's not just about the particular officer, or the attitude of an area - every scheme is different. A sensitive scheme, with high-quality and appropriate materials, by a good architect, which respects the character of the property, street, and wider area is more likely to get the green-light than a scheme that is the opposite. Honestly, you should see some of the shite that people with lovely listed houses try to get away with!!

Terraces are a nightmare for listed consent. External is next to impossible in order to maintain uniformity. Internal, everyone is paranoid about precedent, despite each case being judged solely on its own merits as stated above. The net result is that your application is judged as if every property in the terrace is requesting the modification. In many ways, single dwellings even of higher listing statuses are easier than terraces.

I hope all that external woodwork is in good condition because that will be a costly nightmare to repair/replace.

Lovely house by the way, but it’s one where the listing has the potential to be troublesome in my opinion.

It's not sounding good!
I'll try and talk to conservation officer this week

I've just been through a planning permission process for a grade 2 listed terrace house. It was painful but we are starting to get somewhere on appeal after a year of discussions.

I can't tell you if your council will accept your plans - ours seemed most concerned with how the house looked from the outside. But were also concerned that we kept the wood panelling in the hall way.

I agree with what has been said above - In the first instance, its at the discretion of the planning officer. If they decline and you appeal, and an appeal is deemed valid, in our case it went to the central government planning team.

Good luck!