Pendicle

We contacted planning office before we put in an offer on our site, inhabitable house on acre of land, lots of trees plus site next to wooded area. Told we would need ecology survey, due to house being empty for over a year and the amount of trees on and near site. Asbestos survey due to being built 1960s. Tree survey due to 4 trees having a TPO who would advise root protection. Ecology desk top survey and visit survey was done within 6 weeks and can be done at anytime of the year, but 2nd dawn dusk survey has to happen between may and July, we booked ours in January and the earliest they could do was end of june. Planning had also advised that demolition should happen between oct-feb, we are in Scotland, the ecology surveyor said the same thing. There is a website that you can use interactivity where you put your postcode in and they tell you if bats have been in your area. I will look for it and post, no bats in our case but we had Jackdaws. Regards utilities do not underestimate how long this takes and a shambles of service. We have moved electrics to box at boundary you would not believe the amount of calls, effort and time this took although our experience is very familiar to those here. Still have not managed to get water moved. We have also found it hard to get quotes for some surveys from ground investigation to tree survey with lots of chasing a top tip is to ask those who are working for you as the bat woman gave us a tree survey contact and put in a good word which meant he called and was able to fit us in. The tree protection officer gave us 3 contacts but only one replied and said they were not free for 3 months.

Writing in case our experience is useful to others and appropriate for this thread. We have bought an uninhabitable house in Scotland as deemed by sellers surveyor. Empty for 7 months, owner was in hospital before passing and had built the house himself in 1961. Single skin brick with timber frame, water damage and floor covered in mould and bowing. jackdaws in roof and covered in ferns, 2 storage heaters and single glazing. The poor chap would have been freezing. We have an existing home in London which we have turned into a buy to let due to 3 purchases pulling out due to the hope house prices would come down. We plan to sell when the market is stable so we have some hope of a sale going to completion but presently happy with tenants. So we should pay the extra Stamp duty surcharge on house purchase but because it has been deemed uninhabitable by the surveyor and council we have been able to purchase without surcharge. We were advised to keep the surcharge amount available in case HMRC question the decision and take lots of photos and documents to back up our case. We will be demolishing the house and aim to building a passive house same shape and size and footprint as existing house, basement with ground floor and 2 bedrooms in roof. Our solicitor did not know about the uninhabitable exception and we only found out through own research and he later sort advice to confirm. I should also add planners are happy we are replacing house so this has not effected a proposed development.

As already said above may not have needed to apply for permission when built. Our library archivist are looking for the original plans for our 1960s house for us, the house is built on slope and want more information about the original foundation . We asked planning but no reply.