Why would I need a Certificate of Lawfulness

[stevethejoiner]

If you have been paying council tax for your own home and a council tax for this cottage as a dwelling I cannot understand why it would be illegal. and you say you have been renting it out for 8 years and have all the council tax stuff. Is that correct? have you been paying council tax for two dwellings or just one dwelling and an out building?

If its the later I can understand the council wanting to divide your property tax obligation so they get tax on both as dwellings. And the three options they have given you are the way they want to resolve the issue.

If you have not been paying tax on both, theoretically you could pay back dated council tax if it has been rated incorrectly as an outbuilding and not a dwelling. But how far back do you go, and can you do that?

A good example is my own farm. We have 3 dwellings on the land. One is my property, and two others sold off years ago by previous owners. One is a private residence built 1900s. And the other is a house built in the 1950s. That property was built with planing approval but was agriculturally restricted, ie only persons working in agriculture or forestry can reside in it. The owner, now a retired farmer worker, wanted to sell it, but could only do so to persons working in agriculture or forestry (limited market place). So he applied for a certificate of lawful use to open up the market to anyone.
Evidently he was able to do that because he had been living there for 8 years whilst retired from agriculture. He got the Certificate of lawful use and it came on the market at just about double it agriculturally restricted value. New owners town folk working in city.

What I am saying there, is the property was not classified as a private dwelling house but a business building for agriculture, and he was living there unlawfully because no longer in agriculture so had to get change of use to a private dwelling if anyone else was to buy it.

 

[chapeau]

have you been paying council tax for two dwellings or just one dwelling and an out building?

Question of the week !

 

[colin68]

We pay 2 full council taxes for the houses. From memory the cottage is a band B and we are band D.

We spoke to the council tax people who are more than happy to provide the records as evidence, but the planning guy is off the opinion that council tax doesn't prove anything.

We have instructed our solicitor to draw up an affadavit that we have been renting it out for the past however many years, we will get signed affidavits from the previous and current tenants. We have copies of bills and insurance etc. We now have proof that it was a separate house from 1917.

We shall submit this and see what happens. We just want to be 100% legal.

I am thinking of starting a fund to buy the planning guy a personality transplant. Hopefully others then won't need to deal with his total negativeness.

 

[jeds]

Perhaps you didn't see my earlier question; Is the house a house or an annexe? Scottish law may be slightly different but in England the criteria is based around independant vehicular access, boundary demarcation, registered curtilage, same or separate ownership, etc. If what you have is a house in the garden in the same ownership as the main house you might find it more difficult than you think to have it recognised as a separate dwelling. Try a conveyancer. Ask them if they could sell the house seperately?

 

[colin68]

John, it is a separate house nothing to do with our house other than it is in our garden. We do have shared access via the rear of the property, boundaries are vague, but the lease specifies what the occupants are entitled to and it is all owned by us.

Does the previous stuff about 1948 have any bearing, where it was a house at that point in time?

 

[jeds]

I don't think there is any planning question about the fact that the house exists. It was there before 1948 so you don't need planning for it. What you do need planning for is its use. The key question is whether the house and its curtilage can be identified as a self contained unit of occupation which can be regarded as a separate planning unit. At present the house is in the grounds of a main house, has no separate curtilage of its own, is owned by the same person and presumably is not registered as a separate dwelling. For those reasons - and there's probably more - the house at present looks like an annexe to your main house. If all those thing stack up against you then it's doubtful you would be able to legally sell it separately to the main house. That being the case the local planners would say it's not a dwelling and you can't rent it out.

 

[colin68]

John, This is brilliant and is exactly the sort of info I was looking for, what the council could have objections or issues with.

I take your points on curtilage and ownership, but the property has its own address 158A. It was the council that gave it its address, I believe.

If it were to be deemed an annexe would this still be rentable? what other issues is that likely to throw up?