Driven Mad by the Conservation Cops
Is buying a listed property becoming more hassle than it’s worth? KATRINA BURROUGHS investigates the relentless spread of planning red tape.
“If I had my time over again, I wouldn’t buy a listed property,“ says Elizabeth McKibbin. In a Housing market that is already tough for sellers, new, expensive demands being placed on the owners of listed houses by zealous conservation officers are convincing many that listed homes are just not worth the money or hassle. The price of preserving the nation’s architectural heritage is proving too high.
McKibbin, 47, and her husband, Brian, 68, put Rosemary Cottage, their pretty 17th-century flint and brick mid-terrace cottage, in a charming East Sussex village, on the market last autumn. Soon afterwards, a survey advised that a firebreak be erected – a simple partition to stop-fire- from spreading in the roof space between old terraced houses. A keen buyer was already on the hook, but said he would prefer to wait until the work had been done before exchanging contracts.
Listed-building consent was obtained in April, and construction took three and a half days in May. An inspector from Wealden district council’s building control department visited and “was delighted with the work”, says McKibbin. It was only after the job was complete that the McKibbins fell foul of Wealden’s conservation department.
Checking carefully through the paperwork, McKibbin, formerly head of the commercial property department of a firm of city solicitors, spotted a discrepancy between the various notice periods required by different council departments before works could commence. Mindful that her long-suffering buyer was expecting to proceed immediately, she called the council to iron out any problems that might arise. “I was told I should write a letter of explanation – and send a cheque fro £90 as a down payment for a ‘site completion check’.”
A conservation officer explained that the site check, which would examine the whole house, aimed to uncover any previous work undertaken without listed-building consent, which might then have to be remedied. The fees for this report would be £90 for the first hour and £40 per hour thereafter for a consultant’s time, with no guaranteed limit on the charges. It was likely to cost between £500 and £800.
The report might be available within a couple of weeks of the inspection, but then again, it might take longer. And without it, McKibbin would not have the piece of paper she needed to proceed with her sale – a letter from the council stating that it was happy with the listed building work. McKibbin was horrified, “I felt under suspicion though I’d done nothing wrong” she says. “And, frankly, I was reluctant to spend the money, but I could see no alternative.”
It seems McKibbin was unlucky. The diligence that led her to attempt to rectify a minor technicality drew the conservation officer’s attention to Rosemary Cottage. Had she not picked up the phone, the council might not have been drawn to investigate her house – and her sale might not have been postponed further.
Wealden district council’s conservation department aims to achieve a righteous goal: the protection of East Sussex’s glorious period houses from the depredations of UPVC windows and faux inglenook fireplaces. But is forcing owners who want to sell their listed houses to pay hundreds of pounds to have them signed off by the council really necessary?
Peter Anslow is founder of the Listed Property Owners’ Club (LPOC), which offers legal advice and information on grants, specialist contractors and planning to its members. “This is, in my experience, absolutely unique, “he says of McKibbin’s case. “I was surprised to hear of it.”
David Philips, head of enforcement, conservation and design for wealden, explains: “We have 2,500 listed buildings in the district. When one comes on the market, we might have 15 to 20 inquiries from prospective purchasers regarding the same property. And, more than ever before, the queries we receive go beyond the usual searches. We could answer by sending out a letter, heavily caveated, saying that ‘to the best of our knowledge and belief, all the consents were obtained’ – but people would see that as an abrogation of our responsibility.”
In McKibbin’s case, her buyer was simply waiting for the works to be done and for them to be approved by the conservation department, but had not shown any suspicion that Rosemary Cottage did not comply with listed building regulations.
It seems Wealden’s commitment to the protection of listed properties led them to insist on a full inspection on McKibbin’s home with no evidence that she – or previous owners – had done anything wrong.
So could she have refused them access? No. Wealden. Like any council, has the power to inspect listed buildings under section 88 of Listed Buildings Act 1990, for “ascertaining whether and offence has been committed under the act”. However, nowhere in the act does it say that owners are obliged to pay for their site surveys; other councils tend to stick to doing as much as they can with the resources they have. Since Wealden’s conservation department, which previously consisted of two conservation officers, could not cope with these extra inspections, a new part-time consultant was engaged, with her site visits paid for by reluctant homeowners.
The council originally asked estate agents who were marketing listed homes to pay for the additional inspections. The reaction from agents was “disappointing”, Phillips recalls: one described the council as “mercenary” and another accused the department of “violating human rights”.
So, having met stiff opposition from estate agents to forking out thousands of pounds to ensure the listed homes on their books complied with all the rules, Wealden hit the owners with these bills instead. Most local estate agents and solicitors in East Sussex were unwilling to comment to The Sunday Times last week, citing their need to preserve a working relationship with the conservation department.
One agent, 25%30% of whose properties are listed says: “This policy has and does affect us adversely; we have lost sales through delays and sellers have lost out financially. When they carry out the inspections, they will always find something, however small, and that will hold up the sale.”
There are more than 200,000 listed homes in the UK. Buying one without ascertaining that all the past work on it has been approved can have serious financial implications, as the present owner – not the previous resident who carried out the work – is liable to correct any discrepancies. There is no time limit on enforcement.
Henry Stuart, a specialist in residential property at solicitors Withers LLP, says: “The Council of Mortgage Lenders’ Handbook requirements are becoming even tighter. The lawyer’s role is collecting a paper trail, including planning permissions, listed-building consents and building regulation consents.”
But Stuart points out that Wealden’s inspections are not obligatory for a sale. Like McKibbin’s purchaser’s solicitor, he says he would “ask the surveyor to confirm that any works done to the property were in accordance with consents and seek additional information if discrepancies arise”.
Estate Agents fear that Wealden’s attitude will make listed buildings less desirable and therefore less valuable in the future. Many owners, too, believe the Wealden affair marks the point where controls have simply gone too far.
Andrew Rome, of Knight Frank in Winchester, says: “One of the first questions buyers ask is, ‘Is it listed?’ and if you say no, their immediate reaction is, ‘Thank God for that’. Ten years ago listing used to be quite a selling point. Now you could argue it’s a negative.”
Michael Fiddes, head of the rural division of Strutt & Parker, confirms: “people like period homes but they don’t necessarily look for a listed property – nowadays it’s more hassle than it’s worth.”
Francis Fulford, whose ramshackle stately home in Devon Has been the setting for television programmes about him and his family, agrees. “If we are to preserve the heritage of listed buildings we have to have these ghastly controls to protect them from people with no taste. But if you read the rules, you can scarcely shift a light switch. They are often applied by people just sticking to the letter of the law.”
Anslow says the owners of listed buildings are the wrong people to victimise: “Members have a high regard for conservation, great pride in their homes and a commitment to their upkeep. They spend five times the average budget on their properties in repairs and restoration. But most of them have children and a normal family life to conduct; they can’t live in museums. They do need to maintain their properties as working home.”
Does McKibbin’s story have a happy ending? Her purchaser hung on doggedly, and contracts have now been exchanged on Rosemary Cottage, but almost a month after a site visit, McKibbin is still waiting for her report from the conservation officer and doesn’t yet know what it will cost. To compensate her buyer for this uncertainty, she has paid over the sum of £2,500 as a retention, which she will lose if the crucial letter of compliance isn’t issued within six months.
This article was printed in the Sunday Times on July 12 2005