Builder applying for planning on green areas in Estate

Sponge Bob

It is an Invitation to treat. 500 Homeowners = 500 Invitations !

MorningStar

Bob,

You seem to have a really strange view of this whole matter.

Builder buys land
Applies for planning based on current laws
Plans approved
Building started
One phase of plan built and sold
Law changes
Developer decided to change plans
Applies for further planning

This is where they are at . Either it is a completely new plan or just an amendment to the current plan. The important thing to note is that this is the builder made a set of plans and sold the honestly at the time, he has now changed his plan. The government changed the law to allow increased density.

The builder is doing what the government want and never mis sold his plan at the time. The plan is now differ rent they can only object to the different plan based on its own merits or faults. It doesn't matter what the plan was 5 years ago or what the brochure says. Your only point seems to be that he is changing the plans therefore doing something underhand appears to be misguided. The developer is doing nothing legally wrong or even morally wrong in many peoples' eyes either. Devlopers are allowed change their plans as is anybody. What was sold were the houses and if people believed that include the proposed amenities for certain they were wrong or baddly advised. If advised they should take those people to court.

Sponge Bob wrote:

It is an Invitation to treat. 500 Homeowners = 500 Invitations !

No it is not. It is part of a display for a proposed development and not invitation to treat. Even if it was an invitation to treat as you say by the time they got to the checkout (solicitor) the actual terms of the agreement are verified and stated overriding all other things.

Sponge Bob

MorningStar wrote:

The builder is doing what the government want and never mis sold his plan at the time.

Which he never finished so he did mis sell !

The plan is now differ rent they can only object to the different plan based on its own merits or faults. It doesn't matter what the plan was 5 years ago or what the brochure says. Your only point seems to be that he is changing the plans therefore doing something underhand appears to be misguided.

He ws told to get a planning consultatnt to deal with that , I have stated on about 3 occasions that I agrees

[/QUOTE] The developer is doing nothing legally wrong or even morally wrong in many peoples' eyes either. Devlopers are allowed change their plans as is anybody.
[/QUOTE]
In your eyes , in mine he is.

What was sold were the houses and if people believed that include the proposed amenities for certain they were wrong or baddly advised. If advised they should take those people to court.

When you sell 500 houses you sell A SCHEME including green areas . You will not get planning permission for a SCHEME of 500 houses without green areas .

It is part of a display for a proposed development and not invitation to treat. Even if it was an invitation to treat as you say by the time they got to the checkout (solicitor) the actual terms of the agreement are verified and stated overriding all other things.

Of course the brochure is part of an invitation to treat , especially if it shows an integrated plan for a fully completed 500 house estate without which you would not have chosen to buy into that estate or without which you could not easily work out what site aspect you wanted .

The brochure may explain why certain houses cost 5k more because they will not be overlooked , it may even show these houese in different colours

You must be a property developer morningstar, you are trying to blame Chipboards solicitor and making an absolute hames of it . I have never heard such sh1te in my life

Sponge Bob

MorningStar wrote:

The builder is doing what the government want and never mis sold his plan at the time.

Which he never finished so he did mis sell !

The plan is now differ rent they can only object to the different plan based on its own merits or faults. It doesn't matter what the plan was 5 years ago or what the brochure says. Your only point seems to be that he is changing the plans therefore doing something underhand appears to be misguided.

He ws told to get a planning consultatnt to deal with that , I have stated on about 3 occasions that I agree

The developer is doing nothing legally wrong or even morally wrong in many peoples' eyes either. Devlopers are allowed change their plans as is anybody.

In your eyes , in mine he is

What was sold were the houses and if people believed that include the proposed amenities for certain they were wrong or baddly advised. If advised they should take those people to court.

When you sell 500 houses you sell A SCHEME including green areas . You will not get planning permission for a SCHEME of 500 houses without green areas .

It is part of a display for a proposed development and not invitation to treat. Even if it was an invitation to treat as you say by the time they got to the checkout (solicitor) the actual terms of the agreement are verified and stated overriding all other things.

Of course the brochure is part of an invitation to treat , especially if it shows an integrated plan for a fully completed 500 house estate without which you would not have chosen to buy into that estate or without which you could not easily work out what site aspect you wanted .

The brochure may explain why certain houses cost 5k more because they will not be overlooked , it may even show these houses in different colours and they may be suspiciously close to the green area from which the same developer now wants to overlook those houses for which he charged a non overlook premium. All of this is simple breach of a 5 year old contract . The brochure neatly shows the SCALE of the systematic breach of contract that the developer is proposing to carry out and it does so in a format approved by the developer at the time .

You must be a property developer morningstar, you are essentially trying to blame Chipboards solicitor (if anybody) and making an absolute hames of it . I have never heard such sh1te in my life Next thing is you will be saying that the estate agent actually told all the lies and the poor developer had nothing to do with it , the poor diddums never got that extra money for the non overlooked houses at all and is down to his last range rover since the missus put the other one in a ditch. .

bennyc

We had the same issues with the developer of our estate. At the end of the day he got his planning through for an additional 12 houses and all the residents could do was bring high court action which wasent going to happen for $$$ reasons.
What we did end up getting was speed ramps and a few things fixed up that was not on the inital plans

The residents made several appearences at county council meetings and submitted objections but to no avail

Also the origional plans had the area marked as a green area and even tough the houses close to it were more expensive

muffler

If this was a childrens forum I could understand the huffing and puffing but I assume you guys are a bit more mature than that and as such should behave a bit more like adults.

I feel sorry for poor old chipboard. All he wanted was a bit of advice but what does he get - a couple of people on an ego trip.

None of us here on the boards have seen the planning files in question nor do we know where this development is so we are all contributing to something that is one person's opinion (chipboard) on how the estate is now being developed in a different way from what was apparantly previuosly approved. I'm not saying that he is saying anything wrong but as all you experts are aware the development plans differ from one area to another so unless some of you live next door to chipboard and are a planning consultant and solicitor rolled into one I think it is unfair to comment any further on the matter.

Im still sticking by my advice in that he engages a planning consultant and I think the matter should be left at that.

MorningStar

Sponge Bob wrote:

Which he never finished so he did mis sell !

He simply hasn't finished and if he never finishes the council can fine him. Not a mis sell!! He is only liable to the council on things like paths and street lighting etc...

Sponge Bob wrote:

He ws told to get a planning consultatnt to deal with that , I have stated on about 3 occasions that I agrees

Won't make much difference.

Sponge Bob wrote:

In your eyes , in mine he is.

Well I am looking at it from a legal view and the understaning of purchasing a property. The government CHANGED the law becasue they wanted developers to build morte densely.

Sponge Bob wrote:

When you sell 500 houses you sell A SCHEME including green areas . You will not get planning permission for a SCHEME of 500 houses without green areas

Again I wiould like to point out that the law was changed allowing density to be increased. In other words the greaan space requirement was reduced so if he still within the limits he will be allowed build more. The whole point is that if he had the same plot he would have included the "new" proposed houses would have been on the original plans.

Sponge Bob wrote:

Of course the brochure is part of an invitation to treat , especially if it shows an integrated plan for a fully completed 500 house estate without which you would not have chosen to buy into that estate or without which you could not easily work out what site aspect you wanted .

Why of course? Explain why you think brochure is so important. The brochure would probably not have had the prices anyway. From experience of dealing with this and talking to a solicitor I can assure you brochures are not considered legally binding in anyway. I am not sure of the exact legal reason but they are not considered adverstisements and should only be considered as illistration of possible propsosals. THe brochure have a few statements on them stating things like "proposal" "not to scale" etc... If you know of a specific reason that they are somehow legally binding state your case otherwise I can only assume you are trying to apply normal purcashing rule to property. Property sales are covered by different rules and older more detailed laws.

Sponge Bob wrote:

The brochure may explain why certain houses cost 5k more because they will not be overlooked , it may even show these houese in different colours

They ver y rarely have prices in them but may have a seperate pricing sheet.

Sponge Bob wrote:

You must be a property developer morningstar, you are trying to blame Chipboards solicitor and making an absolute hames of it . I have never heard such sh1te in my life

How many properties have you bought? You may not agree with me but what are you basing your views on? I have been in similar situations and have gone into a lot of detail of planning where a family memeber worked fro 30 years. I might know a bit about this.:cool:

There will be houses built on the space it is just a matter of how many. You hear about all these associations fighting planning but they never win, they may get small victories iin there eyes but they developer plays odds. Propose 120% of what you want then give up 20% and the residents think they won. Standard practice sometimes you get 120% either way it is cheap to do but the benifits are huge. It costs too much to fight them in comparison from the other side. I lost €50k parking space on Mount St. over such a misunderstanding of what I bought so I know a lot about what is what on what you buy and brochure/planning. Cost a lot of money to find out that.

lomb

Sponge Bob wrote:

outside the dysfunctional planning system in order to deal with this greedy developer.

can i ask u a question sponge bob? wouldnt u do the same thing if u were in the developers shoes? he is protecting his legal interest in the site. there are laws in this country where if the public use it for 15 years, there are squaters rights. he no doubt legally owns the green areas as he hasnt handed it to the council. he paid for the green areas fair and square. if hes legally entitled by todays planning laws to build there, and the planners dont view it as overdevelopment of the site(unlikely due to it not being a mature area, and the current zonings) then fairs fair.

personally i think the current densities are a JOKE , but there is IMMENSE PRESSURE to increase the house supply to the rapidly increasing population. somethings got to give if u know what i mean...

he will get the planning there im 99% certain of it, the law is on his side...

JimmySmith

bennyc wrote:

We had the same issues with the developer of our estate. At the end of the day he got his planning through for an additional 12 houses and all the residents could do was bring high court action which wasent going to happen for $$$ reasons.
What we did end up getting was speed ramps and a few things fixed up that was not on the inital plans

The residents made several appearences at county council meetings and submitted objections but to no avail

Also the origional plans had the area marked as a green area and even tough the houses close to it were more expensive

They exact scenario i have seen unfold many times.
Sorry to hear about your trouble, but at the end of the day you and i dont count for **** when it comes to objecting to planning applications.

Chipboard

Thanks for your input;

Just to point out - I am not the worst affected by this; there are several people worse off than me.

My work involves property and I know that this issue is not a clear cut as the above makes it sound, but I do believe that he will get his planning and its only a matter of how many units.

There is no question of my solicitor having screwed up, this could happen anywhere, and I wont be overlooked or anything that serious. I am upset about what it might do to the estate though. Its easy for someone who isn't getting it up the *** to be flippent about it and say the builder has done nothing wrong.

Its not just me who thinks the builder is shafting people - there were around 400 very angry people at our 2 residents meetings. I'm not talking about the law - any judge or solicitor will tell you that the 'law lags society' and this is a perfect example.

The guy beside me who has paid an extra £5k for his 'end' house has been swindled - thats a fact. There are plenty of legal ways of swindling a person, that doesnt make them morally right.

lomb

Chipboard wrote:

Its easy for someone who isn't getting it up the *** to be flippent about it and say the builder has done nothing wrong.

Its not just me who thinks the builder is shafting people - there were around 400 very angry people at our 2 residents meetings. I'm not talking about the law - any judge or solicitor will tell you that the 'law lags society' and this is a perfect example.

i disagree strongly, u or whoever bought their houses can sell them at a profit. people are angry because their interests are being hit, or are jealous of the builder making what hes going to make.
its the law that counts, planning densities are crazy i know that for sure, but what can u do?the only solution is to be a millionaire:(

MorningStar

Chipboard wrote:

There is no question of my solicitor having screwed up, this could happen anywhere, and I wont be overlooked or anything that serious. I am upset about what it might do to the estate though. Its easy for someone who isn't getting it up the *** to be flippent about it and say the builder has done nothing wrong.

Its not just me who thinks the builder is shafting people - there were around 400 very angry people at our 2 residents meetings. I'm not talking about the law - any judge or solicitor will tell you that the 'law lags society' and this is a perfect example.

The guy beside me who has paid an extra £5k for his 'end' house has been swindled - thats a fact. There are plenty of legal ways of swindling a person, that doesnt make them morally right.

I am not even really convinced that your solicitor screwed up. Most people don't pay that much attention to what they actually say. The big problem is that average people think the brochure shows what you get but that means nothing. Your solicitor could not of known the builder would change their plans. The solicitor probably did a reasonable job unless you asked a specific question about proposed spaces.
The fact there are 400 people whom are effected are angry isn't much of a surprise. 400 nimbys don't really make up society just a portion and some people need to be forced do things for the greater good.
The €5k extra people were sold a proposed end house. It wasn't really a swindle and the real people to blame are those who changed the law. THey could have put in a clause to prevent this bu the didn't. THe builder didn't plan this it happened and he took advantage. He will benifit but his initial intent was to build houses and sell them.
I am sorry for the problem but if you were to believe some of the comments here you would think you could win. It is obvious some people are apply common consumer law to property. I would definitely limit the amount of money I would spend on this as you could easily spend a lot of money and get no better results.

Chipboard

MorningStar wrote:

I am not even really convinced that your solicitor screwed up

I will have to re-phrase my earlier comment. My solicitor did not screw up. I have never thought he did. I have good title and there are no problems with anything that the solicitor had responsibility for, or anything I had responsibility for either - I've been dealing with property deals (far bigger than this one) for long enough to know how to purchase a house. I had several reasons for buying where I did and even if I had known that this was going to happen I would still have bought here.

Just to clarify Lomb, telling people to sell (even at a profit) is not really a solution. Its not all about money, especially when your talking about a persons private dwelling house. I don't deal in property, I have no wish to, I make my money doing what I do between 9 & 5 and that won't change.

I'm not under any illusion about what the outcome of this will be - he will get planning - not for all, but for a good portion of the houses. I believe that the law will be changed eventually simply because it is unfair to misrepresent what you are selling. Lastly, the builder did plan this. I cant expand on that for legal reasons but to people who have all the facts there is no doubt that this is exactly what he planned.

muffler

Chipboard wrote:

I've been dealing with property deals (far bigger than this one) for long enough to know how to purchase a house..................... I don't deal in property

Strange statements

JimmySmith

muffler wrote:

Strange statements

Isnt it? That one has me seriously confused now.

MorningStar

JimmySmith wrote:

Isnt it? That one has me seriously confused now.

Not really you can work for a retailer and have to be involved in large land deals for premises. Actually many businesses require a certain amount of property involvement.

muffler

MorningStar wrote:

Not really you can work for a retailer and have to be involved in large land deals for premises. Actually many businesses require a certain amount of property involvement.

This is just as strange:D

Victor

If one takes a look at Aldi and Lidl, I imagine over the last / next few years, they will have bought several hundred sites / leases between them. Its only a minor part of their business though.

lomb

Victor wrote:

Its only a minor part of their business though.

id say its critical, the correct property with good numbers is ESSENTIAL, take that out and aldi and lidl as well as any retailer are nothing. once they have it , get the planning and build it,it is a minor part though:D

Chipboard

I should have said I don't deal in property for myself. My work involves property.

Mod; if you want to close this thread off - I think we can safely say that it has been as much use as its going to be.

molly2

We bought about two years ago in an estate. What we didn't realise was that an old man bought one of the houses in our estate adjoining his back garden with the intention of building a road into it and developing the land residentially. The builder knew this and told nobody. Now he has put down a road into the big garden and has no planning permission what so ever. It gets worse...... There is now a possible treat to the green area been built on from another developer. It is not surronded by any houses. So there could be an extra 100 or so houses in a small area zoned low density. And the council are doing nothing. It has cost a fortune in solicitors fees and nothing has come of it. If there is any journalists out there who want to do a story about this I will gladly give you my piece. Looking at all the different treads on this I am shocked that I don't read about it.