Requests from Buyers solicitor

[Jovacknockowitch]

Been asked to provide planning consents for conservatory built 6 years before we moved in and now 24 years ago. The consent is easy to find on the publicly available planning portal - why are they expecting us to do their admin?

Probably because it's the vendor's responsibility to supply this information. It's hardly difficult to go on the planning portal and send the information on. Cheaper than paying the conveyancer to do it.

Because they cba, email back saying its available on the portal.

It's reasonable, just pass on the info. I would expect my solicitor to do the same if I were the buyer.

Because it’s your responsibility as
the vendor to provide accurate information about the property?

What if there’s an error with the planning portal?

I don’t have anything that isn’t on the planning portal, or any magic way of providing stuff I don’t have.

That’s not the point. It is your responsibility to provide all relevant planning info. The buyer cannot really on a public website that would
ne covered in disclaimers that says it shouldn’t be relied on.

If you don’t have the relevant docs - then they might ask you to pay for an indemnity insurance. Which is not expensive.

I don’t have anything other than what I can print from the portal - so I will make sure I warn them where it came from

Did you have any information when you bought the property?

I don't think this is unusual . It's because you are trying go sell your house so it's up to you to convince them the extensions have followed planning position etc.

Hold on a moment. I thought that was what the Local Authority searches were all about. That is what the buyers are paying their solicitor to do. Not the vendor’s responsibility.

Just send by email a link to the portal page. Job done 🙂

The buyer's solicitor is acting on behalf of the buyer. They have a right to ask for it, although I would have expected it to have shown up in a search.

I would have expected your solicitor to have requested it when you bought the house originally too.

They're only being diligent. If you don't supply it, expect to be haggled. I would in their position.

Just download it and send it on - do you want to sell your house or not?

why would you not do it? do you not want to sell your property and speed things up?

This!

In this market, there is no way I'd buy a house that might have building issues.

I can’t understand why you’re so outraged that you’re being asked for information about your own house. If the alteration was made several years ago it’s quite plausible that not all info will be correct on public portals. It’s your house - if anyone is going to know it should be you. And as I said if you don’t know and there isn’t info on the planning portal they’ll want an indemnity.

I don't think you have read my OP properly. I am not outraged. The information is publicly available on the portal so me getting it is the same task they would do.

The permissions are all on the portal.

Fair enough I'll get on with it.

Did your solicitor not ask for it from the vendors when you bought the property yourself?

I can't remember, it was 17 years ago.

They probably want the signed off building certificates not the fact there was planning permission granted. If you haven’t got them I think you can just take out an indemnity against it.

We were once asked to send proof that a conservatory at a property we were selling DIDN’T require planning permission. How can you prove a negative? The issue had not come up when we bought the property.

It stressed me at the time but we asked the local authority to send us an email confirming the conservatory hadn’t required planning permission, based on the details we provided them. It was all a bit pointless as we could have been lying about the size/construction but luckily they obliged.

This is a long way of saying you can be asked to answer ridiculous questions during the process of selling a house. Best just go along with it and provide a screenshot of the portal or something & say that is all there is.