Advice on Planning Offer

[john0wingnut]

Hi all,

 

I have a Bungaow with a field as part of the land. I say field, but we use it as a garden.

 

I got a local land planner to do a pre app for me, for a 1.5 storey building on the field, which came back from the council as No, basically. 
 

Mainly around the land being outside the settlement envelope, And classed as agricultural, current road too my bungalow not up to standard in terms of width and visibility splays etc, ecology concerns as we have a large pond with Great Crested Newts and they wanted Archeological trenching done aswell.

 

Needless to say, not a great start. All was quiet from this land planner, until last week, when he got in touch and said he had been mulling things over and wanted to make an offer of going for full PP on a success based fee.

 

So I would need to foot the bill for ecology and archeology surveys, then if he successfully got planning, I would need to pay £18k + VAT.

 

Ive already paid about £1800 for the pre app, ecology and archeology would cost me about £2.5k then his fee if he succeeds.

 

So I would end up spending circa £26.5k to get planning on the land, which seems way too high to me, and I’m not really prepared to spend that tbh.

 

Just wanted to get other people’s views as to whether this success fee is actually reasonable, or is it taking the pinkle.

 

The cynic in me is thinking he wouldn’t bother taking it on if there wasn’t a chance of him getting the PP.

 

Any advice welcomed

 

John

 

 

 

 

[Mr Punter]

If you are only in for an extra £2.5k then you need to decide if it is worth it.  Perhaps a developer would be willing to take a punt? Some areas of land are best left as they are or everywhere will be built on.

 

For a single dwelling it may be quite expensive.

[john0wingnut]

33 minutes ago, Mr Punter said:

If you are only in for an extra £2.5k then you need to decide if it is worth it.  Perhaps a developer would be willing to take a punt? Some areas of land are best left as they are or everywhere will be built on.

 

For a single dwelling it may be quite expensive.

Fully get that POV. The field is basically a 1.3 acre garden as our current house is inset 1m into it. 
 

The Village envelope line literally comes down between the house and the field, which just seems odd, given it’s part of our plot.

 

My thoughts were the same that if doing multiple dwellings, then it’s probably reasonable, but for one it seems very expensive, as I had a friend get PP on some land for £10k all in ( appreciate all land is different and needs different approach in some cases)

[ProDave]

What is your proposed "1.5 storey building"?  A new house?  Or just a residential outbuilding?

[john0wingnut]

3 minutes ago, ProDave said:

What is your proposed "1.5 storey building"?  A new house?  Or just a residential outbuilding?

New house.

[ProDave]

2 minutes ago, john0wingnut said:

New house.

Then that sounds a reasonable price to pay. Consider the uplift in value of the land if you can get PP for a house.

 

But I would want an absolute upper cap on his fee, not a completely open ended agreement.

[john0wingnut]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Then that sounds a reasonable price to pay. Consider the uplift in value of the land if you can get PP for a house.

 

But I would want an absolute upper cap on his fee, not a completely open ended agreement.

I would indeed get it in writing, but he has stated £18k + VAT due upon successful granting of PP.

 

 

[john0wingnut]

I have also had another quite off another firm for £12k +VAT, but that is on a normal basis, of me paying it from the outset etc, rather than a success based fee.

 

John

[Russell griffiths]

I would do some sums on the sale value of the land and work out what it’s worth to you. 

Then make a counter offer based on the percentage sale figure. 

 

Our planning cost us just shy of £15,000 worth every penny. 

[the_r_sole]

In my experience, getting something just on the edge of a settlement can be a real pain, so a success based fee is probably a decent way to go - if you've got a quote for 12k already on a normal basis, then 18k on a bonus scheme doesn't seem unreasonable at all!

 

(I'm clearly working at the wrong end of the country with those planning fees!)

Edited July 5, 2020 by the_r_sole

[DevilDamo]

Would any SPA/SANG or CIL contributions also apply to the new build dwelling, which will also start to increase those pre-construction costs?

 

Even though the fees may seem a lot, what percentage of the new build cost and/or re-sale cost would they be, probably quite minimal?

[john0wingnut]

13 hours ago, DevilDamo said:

Would any SPA/SANG or CIL contributions also apply to the new build dwelling, which will also start to increase those pre-construction costs?

 

Even though the fees may seem a lot, what percentage of the new build cost and/or re-sale cost would they be, probably quite minimal?

 

CIL wise I would apply for exemption as doing self build, but Pre-App did not mention anything around SPA / SANG applying.

 

True - re the % of costs. if one worked off say £500k, £25k is only 5%.

[john0wingnut]

14 hours ago, the_r_sole said:

In my experience, getting something just on the edge of a settlement can be a real pain, so a success based fee is probably a decent way to go - if you've got a quote for 12k already on a normal basis, then 18k on a bonus scheme doesn't seem unreasonable at all!

 

(I'm clearly working at the wrong end of the country with those planning fees!)

 

The thing I dont quite understand is, at land registry the land in question is part of the title register etc, thus part of the current house plot. So why does the settlement line bisect my current house from the land, when the current house sits 1m over that line?

[the_r_sole]

23 minutes ago, john0wingnut said:

 

The thing I dont quite understand is, at land registry the land in question is part of the title register etc, thus part of the current house plot. So why does the settlement line bisect my current house from the land, when the current house sits 1m over that line?

 

Land registry plans show your ownership, ownership boundaries aren't considered or referenced in local plans (unless you submit your boundary for consideration to be adopted into the local plan)

[Temp]

+1

Settlement boundaries don't have to be precise to 1m.  The original boundary might have been a hand drawn line on a map that just got digitised incorrectly. 

 

 

[bassanclan]

If you bought the neighbouring fields between you and the next village and amalgamated them onto one title, it wouldn't mean they were in the settlement boundary!

[john0wingnut]

I probably wasnt really clear. The land in question is actually used as our garden, all be it 1.3 arces.

 

So I suppose my thought process was, that being the garden of the property, it should be on the settlement side of things, along with the house.

 

Fully appreciate that if I were to buy the adjoining field, it would be outside, but, this is essentially our garden and they state its agricultural land and hence not included.

 

John

[bassanclan]

It may be your garden now, but a previous owner may have bought a field and added it to his garden so he had a 1.3 acre plot, rather than a typical 0.1 acre plot

[DevilDamo]

3 hours ago, john0wingnut said:

 

CIL wise I would apply for exemption as doing self build, but Pre-App did not mention anything around SPA / SANG applying.

 

True - re the % of costs. if one worked off say £500k, £25k is only 5%.

Just remember to qualify for exemption normally means obtaining a self-build mortgage and the property cannot be sold within three years post completion. If you were thinking of selling, some of those design costs could be absorbed throughout the build and then re-sale costs meaning their impact would not be ‘as bad’.