Hey everyone,
My question is if a residential unit has been split into flats (unofficially/without planning consent) and they are self contained with individual entrances off a communal hallway is the 4 or 10 year planning enforcement rule applicable? ie Does this mean after 4/10 provable years then you can apply for a certificate of lawfulness (and subsequently separate the units with individual leases so they can be sold individually)? If so is it 4 or 10 years that you have to wait and what is generally considered acceptable proof that the work has been carried out?
To let you know the background (which you don't have to read if you don't want!) I am looking at buying a 3 storey building in Hackney, London (after the flat i was trying to buy fell through ). It used to be one big house, then about 10 years ago planning was granted for use of the ground floor as a clinic (and the upstairs residential). It's a very thin building and there's only one entrance door, which leads to a corridor with one door going off into the clinic and one door at the bottom of the stairs up to the residential. 2 to 3 years ago the upstairs was unofficially converted into 2 x 1 bedroom flats (1 on each floor).
It's quite a main road and there are a lot of commercial units, however on the stretch that this is on the buildings either side are fully residential (and on one side there are about 10 continuous residential buildings down the street). Ideally i would like to convert this into 3 flats as it makes little point having it as commercial (there's lots of vacant shops on that road, it's surrounded by resi, there's a demand for low cost housing, the shared commercial/residential communal area is very strange, it used to be residential etc).
I went to see the duty planners yesterday and they were even more unhelpful than usual and said I couldn't get any indiciation of whether this might be accepted or not. They said even a preplanning app wouldn't give me any indication and the only way to get any idea is to submit a full planning app. I asked for general guidelines and policies on the area (is there a need for retail/housing/too much retail/commercial etc) and she said there is none and it's all done on a case by case basis.
I am in the process of trying to ascertain more information from other sources and would ideally like to change the commercial unit into a flat as well but i'm wondering if the 4 year rule applies to the upstairs units because if so it may be worth just waiting a year and then applying for a certificate of lawfullness.
I would greatly appreciate any information/advice anyone can give me on this as the planners have been as unhelpful as they could possibly have been and whilst i'm not a fan of doing things this way round I need to know what options I have (as i won't be able to get a guarantee one way or the other in time to make an offer anyway).
Thanks so much,
Dave
My question is if a residential unit has been split into flats (unofficially/without planning consent) and they are self contained with individual entrances off a communal hallway is the 4 or 10 year planning enforcement rule applicable? ie Does this mean after 4/10 provable years then you can apply for a certificate of lawfulness (and subsequently separate the units with individual leases so they can be sold individually)? If so is it 4 or 10 years that you have to wait and what is generally considered acceptable proof that the work has been carried out?
To let you know the background (which you don't have to read if you don't want!) I am looking at buying a 3 storey building in Hackney, London (after the flat i was trying to buy fell through ). It used to be one big house, then about 10 years ago planning was granted for use of the ground floor as a clinic (and the upstairs residential). It's a very thin building and there's only one entrance door, which leads to a corridor with one door going off into the clinic and one door at the bottom of the stairs up to the residential. 2 to 3 years ago the upstairs was unofficially converted into 2 x 1 bedroom flats (1 on each floor).
It's quite a main road and there are a lot of commercial units, however on the stretch that this is on the buildings either side are fully residential (and on one side there are about 10 continuous residential buildings down the street). Ideally i would like to convert this into 3 flats as it makes little point having it as commercial (there's lots of vacant shops on that road, it's surrounded by resi, there's a demand for low cost housing, the shared commercial/residential communal area is very strange, it used to be residential etc).
I went to see the duty planners yesterday and they were even more unhelpful than usual and said I couldn't get any indiciation of whether this might be accepted or not. They said even a preplanning app wouldn't give me any indication and the only way to get any idea is to submit a full planning app. I asked for general guidelines and policies on the area (is there a need for retail/housing/too much retail/commercial etc) and she said there is none and it's all done on a case by case basis.
I am in the process of trying to ascertain more information from other sources and would ideally like to change the commercial unit into a flat as well but i'm wondering if the 4 year rule applies to the upstairs units because if so it may be worth just waiting a year and then applying for a certificate of lawfullness.
I would greatly appreciate any information/advice anyone can give me on this as the planners have been as unhelpful as they could possibly have been and whilst i'm not a fan of doing things this way round I need to know what options I have (as i won't be able to get a guarantee one way or the other in time to make an offer anyway).
Thanks so much,
Dave
