What happens if you want to buy a listed building but it would appear it has been extended and quite likely no planning consent received?!

[mimimilk]

The situation is we are very very keen to buy a house locally which is grade two listed. It is in a very bad condition and needs complete renovation which we are willing to do, working with the local planning dept.

The thing is, it would appear that at some point in the past (we are talking decades nt last few years going on general state of the place)an outbuilding which was, as it would suggest, out side of the house, has been 'joined on' for want of a better term. The deeds do not reflect this unfortunately.

If anyone has any experience of this or maybe works in a planning dept, I would be glad of any thoughts or experiences. Obviously this situation id not great (lol) but basically we just want to know if we would be compelled to demolish part of the building!!

As far as I know there is a 4 year time limitation on planning whereby the planning authorities would have to be informed (or find out about) the unplanned extension in order to rule against it.
In other words if its more than 4 years old there's nothing they can do.

However, listed buildings generally have stricter planning rules but I don't know what they would be in your particular case (I live in a listed house but am not planning expert!)

someone on ehere is a planning expert. cannot think of her name but its something like "planningexpert" lol.

Thanks for the replies!
Oh planning expert please come forth lol!!

Retrospective planning permission has to be applied for and if there is no evidence as to when the change occurred then it is usually granted.
The stair were moved in our old house and it wasn't a problem at all.

We did exactly this. Our house is GII listed, and had been extended about 20years ago - no paperwork and the Council had no paperwork either. We had a long long chat with the planning officer. I also made phone calls to loads of other departments, always asking for advice. I was told that they felt it was highly unlikely that we would ever be asked to pull it down and they haven't asked us to get permission retrospectively, either.

We did find that all the things we wanted/needed to do to the house went through with no problems - we like to think that it's because we had spent a lot of time getting their advice, changing plans/ideas (nothing on paper) according to their whims etc. before we even bought the place!