The property
A single storey timber clad outbuilding in the grounds of a detached rural house near Southminster, in the Maldon district of Essex, outside any settlement boundary. It was built around 2000 with planning permission as a cattery, under conditions tying its use to the main house.
The brief
From 2008 the building had been let as a self contained home. The problem surfaced on a sale, when the buyer’s conveyancers questioned it. An earlier application for a certificate describing it as an annexe had been refused, and the council had opened an enforcement case. The new owner needed the use made lawful.
What we did
- Read the refusalThe first certificate failed because an annexe must be ancillary to the main house, and this home never had been.
- Built the evidenceCouncil tax and valuation office records from 2009, the electoral register, separate fuel supplies, and two statutory declarations.
- Engaged enforcementA letter setting out that the breach of condition began in late 2008, so the use was immune from enforcement whatever it was called.
- Reframed the caseThe application recast as a separate dwelling in breach of condition for more than ten years, on the balance of probability, with case law answering any suggestion of concealment.
- Certificate grantedSubmitted in August 2021 and granted under delegated powers in October 2021, with no objections.
The legislation
The certificate was sought under section 191 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, relying on the ten year period for a breach of condition in section 171B, with the evidence tested on the balance of probability as national guidance requires.
The right legal question turned a refusal into a certificate.
The outcome
Read more about our planning services, and the earlier five dwellings on a brownfield site case in Essex.
