Letting out some of your house as independant units advice/ opinions needed please

[ANTagony]

I am looking at the possibility of buying a house that was converted to 6 independant units in 1993. It had building reg approval and has a sign off cert for the work done. In 2001 planning was applied for, for the residence to be 6 units. This was declined in 2002. The property has been fairly well tenanted since 1993 and I can find no evidence of the council trying to enforce the planning rejection. As it has building regs approval I'm not quite sure how they could enforce unless someone tried to sell the separate units.

This is my basic logic:

1. Generally you don't need planning permission for installation of additional bathrooms, kitchens and doors

2. You don't need planning permission to let out rooms/ sections of your house. Infact from a tax point of view it seams to be actively encouraged.

please advise if its very flawed before I spend lots of money on going through it in detail with planning consultants and solicitors.

I want to live in two of the units by linking them and rent out the others as an income.

planning not only pertains to what the building loosk like etc but what its function is. You can of course let out rooms etc but that is qute different from creating a completely self contained unit.

I would say you are on very shaky ground as all you need is one beligerent planning officer or a nosy neighbour and your life would be hell!

also wont your mortgage lender query this? unless of course you dont need a mortgage.

Hmm, I have a feeling that planners cannot enforce their decision if they have done nothing about the breach for (possibly) ten maybe 12 years. I would check this but, agree with wombleprincess, that it doesn't look good. The fact that it confroms to the then current building regs does not mean the local authority implicitly gave it permission to be converted and if the owner tried to regulate this a few years ago and consent was declined, it sounds a bit of a risky plan. Tbh, I can't imagine your conveyancing solicitor will advise you to continue if the vendor can't produce a document showing planning consent is in place or a certificate of lawful use.