Gutted - think we have to withdraw our offer on house due to sellers omission on planning permission.

[cocogoloco]

Had an offer accepted last week. When viewing property, talked to owners about how we may look to add a loft conversion. They they offered the info that the single story extension they added was meant to be double story, but due too funds and baby on way, they stuck with single.

We have just had back dims on loft measurements and its well under the minimum height dims, so i did a little hunting online for their planning docs to see if i could find info about the depth of the footings for the single ext.

Turns out they had planning permission denied for double storey due to neighbours right to light (its a semi). So we can't extend up or out.

Feel so mis-lead, if they had just been upfront about it. We even went over asking.

We are going to call their EA tmrw and ask for clarity, but its all there in b&w on the planning portal :(

We are end of terrace so had the same problem about not being able to raise the roof ridge line.

@doingitforthegirls they absolutely did lie as they were turned down by planning!

@cocogoloco you just have to decide if you want to take your chance. We had a similar situation with this house but spoke to an architect about the chances of us being successful. They put it at 50/50 (also a 2nd floor extension). No one else had done it so I thought our chances were worse. Vendors had built one without planning with no buildings regs so either we had to knock it down or rebuild it. Luckily we got planning but we knew we were taking a risk. Might be worth asking a planning consultant what your chances are if it's a house you love. If it's not, I would move on.

Also, the written extract you posted appears to be from a planning officer's report, not an actual decision notice. It would appear that the planners had indicated that the original scheme submitted may not be successful and invited the applicant to amend the proposal. This is not the same as having planning permission refused.

Have any other houses done similar loft conversions in the area?

Oh for gods sake.
It might not have been a lie if they'd said all that. You don't know any of that. That's all just made up by you.

All OP knows is that PP was denied. That's what OP should have been told.

It's a lie. Pull out. You don't want to be in business with shady sellers.

You should ever take anybody’s word on extension potential anyway…

You would just need to lower the ceilings on the first floor. Lots of people have done it where I live. It adds an extra £7k to the cost of the job but well worth it; and it barely impacts the visual appearance of the first floor bedrooms.

Planning permission isn't really that binary, if your designer is cheap they draw a box on the back and the council either says it's ok or not.
If you have more time and money, you get an expensive designer and you negotiate, discuss and appeal until you get something that's acceptable to everyone.
No one can say a double storey extension would never be allowed, it's all depending on your budget and time (well not quite, but you get the idea!)