Listed consent

[Itsrainingatlast]

I was due to exchange last week. Small chain below me which is ready. My vendors are moving into rented, so we thought we were already ready to go.
The property I’m buying is Grade 2 listed, in a conservation area. It’s been very sensitively redeveloped and the survey showed it was in very good condition. My solicitor has now told me there are three documents missing; one confirming change of use (although planning permission was approved so this should be ok) and two confirming the listed sign off for when the chimneys were repointed and windows restored. He says an indemnity is not an option. Planning was approved, but appears the final approval from the conservation officer is missing.
He says the sale can’t proceed without these. The chain below me is getting very anxious (ftbs at the bottom with a baby due in 3 weeks). The council have said it’s a formality, but my solicitor says this isn’t good enough, and it could take several weeks to get the conservation officer out again.
We appear to be stuck. Any advice?

Follow your solicitor’s advice. Doing work to a listed building without consent is a criminal offence.

historicengland.org.uk/advice/hpg/uwandhc/offences/

Thanks @MinnieMountain; I’ve got the documents proving listed consent was given before the work was done, what I don’t have are the certificates signing the work off after it was done.

I don't have copies of the sign off for my listed house either, just the planing consent. We bought 14months ago. This wasn't a problem. Is it worth re checking with your solicitor and the vendors solicitor?

We bought our G2 listed property almost 3 years ago and have lots of consent documents for work done but no sign off docs at all to my recollection. The only one our solicitor got really stressed about was the bathroom conversion dating back to 1962, twenty years before the house was even listed! But the council found it eventually so all fine in the end. The conveyancing did take ages as there was so much planning and listed consent paperwork to work through.

We do have one indemnity for a piece of work on rear elevation windows that the council couldn't find the consent document for.

Why is your solicitor saying that an indemnity won't do?

Could you complete on your sale and move into short term rental until the situation is resolved?

Stressful time

We are in grade II listed and just had chimney redone - the approval was from planning and conservation together and we've not been told about a sign-off afterwards. I would agree with the council. They are incredibly slow in our area - ours took 8 months to approve the chimney plan. If it otherwise looks fine I would go ahead.

Thank you, this makes me feel a bit better! All the consents are there and my LTV is so low my mortgage provider didn’t bother with even a drive by valuation. I think my solicitor is just being ultra cautious.
Renting is an option; obviously would prefer not to though!

I think they are being ultra cautious too, all the grade II I know around here would have at least that. They do take longer to sell but as long as you wouldn't need to sell quickly and its a longer term home I would go ahead. Our solicitor wasn't bothered about things like that, think she deals with grade II a lot. The conservation department are often very understaffed - ours takes 2 months to reply to an e-mail so you could be waiting ages for them to come out. You could ask surveyors opinion on phone. Or if you get receipts ours would show it was done with specialist bricks etc and specialist builder, the same as in planning doc. Our permission didn't mention a final sign off.

Yes, agree with everyone else - we've recently had work done on a listed building and no one came back to sign the work off (we obvs had listed building consent!). Is your solicitor getting confused about the process for building control vs listed consent?

To echo the others, we have planning permission for work on our grade 2 listed, but no sign off documents. This was never raised as an issue.

To be honest, there's probably stuff that we don't have permission for but it was done 2 or 3 owners back and we're not worrying about it

Is it possible you could rent the house you are planning to buy? Would your vendors consider this. Obviously you would need a formal arrangement in place, something your Solicitor might be able to arrange. But if possible could be the answer. It is something we considered in 2019 when we were caught up in a very prolonged purchase.
Our buyers and theirs below them, were very keen to move in but our purchase was delayed as our vendor was awaiting a decision by the Land Registry. Size does matter, 12 inches of garden /boundary wall cost us £££££!

You don't get it signed off. The work has to be carried out in accordance with all the details in the application for LBC, but unless there is a doubt that this hasn't been done (a neighbour reports etc) the Conservation Officer won't normally check, unless it is major works to important Grade 1 where he might keep a watching brief.