Thinking of buying a Grade 2 listed building. Can anyone answer a few questions?

[Househelp123]

We are thinking of buying a Grade 2 listed building. I have printed off the listing from the Historic England site. It hasn't been updates for a while, and the owners have made some external changes, which I can see on the local council website they had consent for (including I presume listed building consent, because it mentions the listing) so I presume that is alright.
But when I went round there were some of the internal bits on the listing that I couldn't find/reconcile/match up.

How big a problem is this and what should I do about it?

The listing has not been updated to include the extensions - should I do anything about that?

Am I right in thinking I could also need listed building consent to change the driveway (at the moment it is a large patch of gravel - we may like to make slight alterations.

The cellar is damp even though it has had a sump (?) installed and damp lining added (for which consent was obtained). Anything I can do about that or do we just live with it?

I bought a Grade two house about fifteen years ago.

Some in the street have since put double glazed plastic windows. When it comes to selling they will have to change them. I notified them and put in joiner made bespoke windows like for like.
It depends on what is written for that house. Go and speak to the planning people and they will advise. I found them very helpful although they spoke in general about the street rather than an individual house. The whole row is listed. Someone put horrible cladding on one and when sold the new owner was made to remove it. It can be reflected in price.
I can alter the inside but the outside should be uniform. You need a good solicitor to make sure you know exactly what you are taking on.

Hi. I recently moved into a grade 2 listed building. You can repair anything like for like but any changes to the fabric of the building, including internal fixtures which have historic value like original floors, fireplaces, flooring, and all outbuildings and boundary walls/fences are covered by the listing whether mentioned on the listing or not. The listing on the historic England site is just to allow the building to be identified. There is a forum called the period property forum which might be worth a quick look. They seem quite friendly and have a lot of knowledge about listed buildings

Just to add once you own the building you are responsible for any previous damage done and can be taken to court by the Council and made to put it right at any point, not just when you sell, although that is often when the conservation officers spot the damage on the internal pics from the estate agent.

Find out who the local conservation officer is and give them a ring. If they are anything like mine they will be very helpful.
You need to make sure everything is in order to protect yourself as it is a criminal offence to complete unauthorized work on a listed building. Most changes need listed building concent or planning. I can't even repaint mine inside!

If you aren’t sure whether they’ve met the necessary consents for a listed house you will probably be advised to take out extra insurance. This is no big deal but protects you if planners do ever raise an issue as any new owner becomes liable eg perhaps if a roof hasn’t had correct (reclaimed) tiles . I have a feeling there is a time line with this eg if changes were made more than 5 years ago I think should be ok but worth checking with a solicitor

The insurance won't protect you. You are still liable for prosecution/ or to put it right.

This is very interesting as I have my eye on a listed house. It's been on the market for ages and from the photos it looks like the owners have made quite a few changes to the layout. I need to check for previous consents for any work but it looks like most of it was done years ago. I'll also ring the planning dept to see what they say about changing things - the current owners have blighted it with their changes tbh and I'd want to take it back to original layout.

Don't do it! We have a grade II listed building and I'll never buy one again. It's luck as to what your conservation officer is like - ours is an arse and is talking about getting us to replace our roof, even though it is clearly at least 40 years old. There is no time limit on listed buildings, so be sure that absolutely everything has had prior consent. You could ask the vendor to apply for this retrospectively, but chances are they won't want to as this will expose what they have done without permission and leaves them liable to putting it right/getting fined etc. This includes stuff inside.

It took us nearly a year to get permission to knock a small opening through the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and it's taken over a year (still not settled) to get permission to repair a cracked outside wall. It has been super stressful and very expensive, and had I known I never would have bought it. Indemnity insurance can protect you from unauthorised works done by previous owners (which you will be liable for - remember with no time limit), but IMO won't make up for the stress, time, money etc it takes to deal with obtuse conservation officers and regulations. You might be lucky with your conservation officer, but I would never take the risk again. It's a shame because we've tried to do everything right and look after the building but have met with hassle at every turn.

Don't need to do anything about having the listing updated with the extensions, per PP it's how the house was at the time of listing.

Quite rare to have internal features mentioned (usually says interior not inspected) and a bit unfortunate for you as that is a record of how it was at the date of listing (when was it listed BTW?) which could get you into trouble, whereas in our house it was listed in 1987, interior not inspected so the conservation officer was unable to insist we restore an inappropriate fireplace as it may have been like that when listed in 1987 (we did restore it, with conservation officers support and listed building consent).

I believe you can get indemnity policies for unauthorised work (will pay out for cost of whatever remedial work the council insist on) but you can't take out such a policy if council have been made aware of issues so don't speak to anyone until you are sure of your plan of action.

NB. No time limit on listed building enforcement. But prosecution is only for the person who did the work (owner and builder) so you won't go to prison for buying the house like it is, but you could be made to put things right.

This thread is really helpful as I thought we would be safe with indemnity insurance but sounds like it doesn’t protect us if the consents were granted but the work wasn’t done correctly? I can’t find information on what conditions were given for redoing a roof and only have proof planning consent was given- but our surveyor was surprised not to see reclaimed tiles so said to mention it to the solicitors.
The threat of possibly having to re-do an entire roof not to mention interior fittings mentioned in the original listing is very worrying

The difficulty with prosecution is that the council has to be very sure who did the work. I'd ask the vendor to buy an indemnity policy IIWY.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/7663/listedbuildingprosecutions.pdf

Ok thanks so much.
(In our case it’s clear I think that the vendor did the work as it’s all documented on the council website so it’s not so much prosecution that worries me but in buying the house we could it seems be suddenly liable to redo the works they did if it wasn’t done to any listed buildings standards stipulated (we have seen all planning consents but no guidelines on materials allowed for example and our surveyor was surprised by the changes )

But if you have an indemnity policy, it would pay for the new roof. The only reason I would see for not proceeding with the purchase would be the hassle factor (not to be underestimated - see Wildery's experience above) or if you wouldn't want the interior changes that have been 'illegally' made reversing (bearing in mind that the imdemnity would pay the full costs relating to that), i.e. if it would be a deal-breaker to put back the wall that was removed, or whatever.

Short answer: do not buy.

Longer answer: We bought a grade 2 listed toenhouse. It had been owned by the council until the 80s. The council took out all the original features. All of them. They sold it to a private owner and then the whole street was listed. The listing is for the whole building. We had a ridiculous situation where we couldn’t add a stud wall to the top floor to make an en suite because the conservation officer said as all the features had gone, the layout was the only thing left to preserve. She suggested a pod bathroom but then was at a loss that describe what that meant. Pod bathrooms are usually inserted into hotels while the roof is off. She wouldn’t accept anything that our architect drew up. Huge expense. You really are at the whim of whomever gets the case. We were prepared to spend huge amounts on preserving and caring for the building but gave up. We sold and found a place with no restrictions.

Don’t do it.

My folks live in a grade II listed building.

My mother is extremely bloody minded and just does stuff without getting permission. No idea how that is going to pan out.

I wouldn’t buy a listed house. My friends mum has been trying to sell hers for over a year now- buyers are put off because of the listing status.

I’m not worried about re-selling for many reasons as plan to stay there indefinitely plus it has been hard to buy in the first place in terms of interest .
But origamiwarrior I am reassured I hope by your post as I was getting the impression indemnity insurance isn’t that useful - so as long as it protects us financially in case of anything we didn’t mean to take on I would relax.
Thank you all so much as not even my thread but very grateful for all this experience and help

If the council is already aware of a breach of listing, the insurance will be invalid so check with them first if there are any known problems with the property. The previous owners of ours have knocked a large archway down at the end of the driveway and not replaced it so we negotiated some money off the house price. I think as long as you are happy with the current lay out and main features and there isn't anything too expensive to put right listed buildings are lovely.

Thus thread has been really helpful. In the process of buying a grade ll building with oast houses where the roofs have been replaced with corrugated iron. Have a feeling we will be 'made to replace them.

What if we genuinely can't afford to do these types of restorations? Even if we wanted to?

Would they prosecute?

????

We live in a 2* listed building and the council have always been really helpful. We've knocked down walls, converted the cellar, added bathrooms etc. We've always been careful to get permission and to be sensitive to the architecture of the house but it hasn't been onerous ( apart from a few shenanigans with archeological bods in the cellar.)

They don't change the details of the listing after scheduled alterations- but if the proper consents are in place there's no problem.

@RhondaP I'd just phone the listed building office and ask them.

That's archeological people not bodies!!! In case you were imagining we were living above an ancient burial ground

My NDN is trying to sell her grade 2 listed house because she can't afford the work needed (£20,000 or thereabouts to replace the roof). She's dropped the price significantly but no sign of a buyer. Listed properties round here noticeably take longer to sell. We are very lucky because the previous owners had done the roof and put in a modern bathroom upstairs. When we were buying, we actually went round the house with the seller and the conservation officer to double check the changes were permitted which was very helpful. I know the house will always cost extra time and money in maintenance but it is a magical place to live. We absolutely love it.

Rhonda I assume if you could set out a reasonable time scale in which you would make good the alterations then it would be ok, otherwise you would have to sell it to.