Is this a case of Misselling a property?
Hi
In 2002 I bought a shop with living accommodation above, which is how it was described in the sales literature. The previous owners daughter had been living in the bedsit above but moved out upon completion.
During the time I have owned the shop I have never used it as accomodation or rented it out, as I use the shop for my own business and there is only one entrance, so it would only suit an owner/occupier.
I have now got to a point where I need to move to bigger premises and so will need to sell the shop. However here is the problem. I have now found out that the previous owner never obtained planning / building regs for conversion of the bedsit above, so I am presuming that if I sold the building as a shop with living accommodation It would not be the case and I could potentially be sued at worse or any hope of a sale could fall through if this was picked up by the searches.
To be honest I am suprised that my solicitor never picked up on this at the time of the original purchase and queried where the paperwork was.
So what I would like to know if anyone can help is, do you think that there is a case for miss selling here and is there anything I need or can do about it?
Thanks for any help
Any claim would likely be
Any claim would likely be against your solicitor - so that is where you need to start. Write to them requesting an explanation and take it from there.
Thankyou for your prompt
Thankyou for your prompt reply.
I'm kicking myself because the solicitor I used wasn't my my usual firm. Beginning to wish i'd used my original one now then I probably wouldn't be in this mess!
Quick fix
A quick fix to this might be for you to contact your local planning office and discuss the possibility of retrospective application for change of use for the flat above, seeing as it has been a dwelling for the past 10 years. They can only say no, but if they agree, it will save you time and money in terms of selling your property and in terms of suing the solicitor who did your conveyancing. Honestly, if you need to sell your property, that's the option I'd go with. If you explain the circumstances to your planning department, they might feel inclined to be helpful, as opposed to being awkward. Good luck anyway.
Thankyou James for taking the
Thankyou James for taking the time to reply.
This is something that I thought about possibly doing.
Going to sit down this weekend and go through the options. I don't really want to go down the legal route of persuing the solicitor unless absolutely necessary. I just need to make sure that I'm not going to open myself up to any problems at a later date once i've managed to sell.
I've not experienced anything like this before, so it's been a bit of an eye opener but a very useful lesson to learn for future purchases.
You stated in your original
You stated in your original post that you had never used the area as accommodation, so James' idea probably wouldn't work for retrospective permission; to the contrary, ten years of non-use as accommodation would indicate it wasn't seen as accommodation.
Nothing to stop you applying for permission now though.
I remain of the opinion that the solicitor's explanation is required first - that'll cost you no more than a sheet of paper, ink, envelope and stamp.