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If you are the owner of a house, flat or other type of leasehold or freehold residential property and you are engaging in some construction work at the home, there’s a risk it might violate the local authority’s planning policies. Should that happen, the council may issue an enforcement order, and this guide explains how that may create hurdles to selling your property.
- What does it mean if my property has an enforcement notice?
- The different categories of enforcement notices for homes
- Important information councils must include in an enforcement notice
- Enforcement notices can make selling a house or flat harder
- Appealing an enforcement notice before selling your property
- Four ways to find a buyer for your home with an enforcement notice
- Top questions and answers about selling property with an enforcement notice
What does it mean if my property has an enforcement notice?
Planning control, also known as development control, is a broad term that refers to the many rules and regulations that apply for construction – and this includes planning permission, or the lack of it, that you might have for work that you are having done at your property.
Whether you are pursuing a major renovation or extension at your house or flat, or whether you are investing in what you consider to be minor structural changes to the home, if the local authority believes that the work violates planning control, they can challenge it. And the legal mechanism through which they can do this is known as an enforcement notice.
Councils have discretionary authority under a law known as the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to issue enforcement notices to homeowners. These notices can order you to take corrective actions to resolve the alleged breach of planning requirements, and there are serious consequences for not complying.
Homeowners that try to ignore an enforcement notice could ultimately be sued by the local authority and potentially be subject to finds that can add up to thousands of pounds.
Enforcement notices can be issued for a wide range of construction work done at a property that was not authorised or done beyond the scope of any existing planning permission for the home
The rest of this guide provides crucial details on the various types of enforcement notice that you may receive, as well as how getting one of these notices may complicate your efforts to sell a property. But it also provides important information on some steps that you can take in order to boost your odds of a buyer making a competitive and fast offer for your home.
The different categories of enforcement notices for homes
No matter the type of flat, house or other residential property you own, there are a number of different enforcement notices that you could receive for work that a local authority believes did not have adequate planning permission or otherwise violated its planning control.
The term "enforcement notice" can often be used to refer to more specific actions, so understanding the various council decisions can be helpful if you receive one.
Enforcement notice: These notices in particular are issued if you have pursued construction at your home that breaches a condition of your planning permission, or without any permission.
Breach of condition notice: A local authority can issue this notice for any construction that breaches existing limits or conditions for planning permission and harms the local area.
Stop notice: This is effectively an emergency order that the council could issue to direct an immediate freeze on the development work, and it’s an offense to do any more work.
Injunctions: Often used as a final enforcement step by a local authority, this is perhaps the most serious type of notice and is used to halt a potential or actual planning breach.
Planning contravention notice: Councils use these to tell owners to stop their building work at a property or to retroactively file a planning permission application for the work.
Important information councils must include in an enforcement notice
There are also some key facts that a notice should include, as Planning Aid England explains:
- Details of the alleged violation of planning control that occurred
- Any steps the owner may have taken already to fix the breach
- The date that the enforcement notice is effective
- The deadline for when the council needs to issue the notice
- An explanation from the council for issuing the notice
- Deadlines for the owner to comply with the terms of the notice
- The boundaries of the property that the notice applies to
- Information on how the owner can appeal the notice
This list is not exhaustive and there are other factors that the council may include in the notice. If you receive a notice for your property and you are considering appealing it, it might be useful to consult with a legal professional to see whether there is crucial information missing that may make it easier to win your case, and this guide explains the appeals process in a later section.
Enforcement notices can make selling a house or flat harder
The UK government’s website notes that a local authority should only make the decision to issue an enforcement notice when it can reasonably conclude that a breach of planning controls exists and that pursuing this type of action is the most suitable approach to take.
If your council has decided that this applies in your situation, you might quickly discover that the existence of the enforcement notice can complicate your efforts to sell your property.
That’s because homes that are subject to an enforcement notice will usually be seen as problem properties by many prospective buyers and therefore harder to sell. People who may otherwise be interested in your home could be worried about their liability for the notice if they become the new owner.
Depending on the specific circumstances of your enforcement notice, it’s possible that the council might try to argue that the person that buys your home takes on the liability for the unresolved enforcement action. And if the work required under the notice is extensive and expensive, this will often be too much of a risk for someone to consider taking on, because not complying with an order can result in litigation and potentially thousands of pounds in fines.
A further complication you could experience is if you’re trying to sell to a private buyer that would need to get approved for a mortgage in order to afford purchasing your property.
Mortgage providers grant home loans that the buyer repays, plus interest, through monthly instalments. If someone defaults on their repayments, the lender can move to repossess the home and resell it, hoping that the proceeds from the next sale recoup the outstanding amount of debt. But lenders may fear that a home with an enforcement notice will be difficult to resell at a profit, and this could cause them to reject a mortgage application, preventing the sale.
Appealing an enforcement notice before selling your property
If you’re worried about the negative impact that an enforcement notice could have on your attempt to sell your house or flat, you may want to consider challenging the notice.
You can file an appeal with the Planning Inspectorate and this must be done ahead of the deadline for the notice taking effect. If you file your appeal any time after this deadline then there is no guarantee that the Planning Inspectorate will agree to even hear it.
Someone filing an appeal against an enforcement notice will typically raise several claims for why they think the notice is in error, as Blandy & Blandy Solicitors notes. Reasons for justifying an appeal of a notice can include:
- The alleged breach outlined in the notice did not happen
- The construction was not a breach of planning control
- A breach occurred but the council should grant planning permission
- The corrective actions in the notice go beyond what’s necessary
- The council did not correctly serve the enforcement notice
- Too much time has passed to pursue an enforcement action
- The deadline for resolving the breach is unfairly short
If you were to win your appeal of the enforcement notice, this would mean that the council would be forced to withdraw it, meaning it will no longer be a problem associated with your property. That would resolve the issue with buyers losing interest in your home because of the notice.
You should be aware that there is no guarantee you will win the appeal, and pursuing one can be a very lengthy, costly and stressful experience. If you’re looking for a hassle-free sale or to sell quickly and with minimal expenses, filing an appeal of an enforcement notice may not be something that you can or want to do – but it will still be possible to sell your home.
One solution to sell without filing an appeal is to contact a quick home buyer like LDN Properties, because these companies are well known for being able to make speedy and fair offers to buy all types of houses and flats, including those that have enforcement notices. They won’t view the existence of such a notice as a dealbreaker, and they also won’t charge you any commission when purchasing your property, so you’ll get multiple benefits when selling via this method.
Four ways to find a buyer for your home with an enforcement notice
You’ll need to decide which method of selling to use when trying to find a buyer for your house or flat that has an enforcement notice. Typically, you will be able to select from selling with an estate agent, selling at an auction, selling to a quick home buyer or selling on your own.
There are advantages and disadvantages with each of the choices, ranging from the drawback of having to sometimes wait more than a full year to sell when doing so without any help through to the benefit of avoiding paying fees when selling to a no-commission quick buyer.
You may want to write down your top aims with selling, such as your ideal sale price, whether you are open to paying any commission, and how long you can wait to sell, and then comparing these factors against the specific details of the four selections below. This can help with narrowing down the choices to the one that best pairs with your unique needs.
Selling with an estate agent
A traditional way to sell your home is through an estate agent, and they will start by producing a listing that features photographs of the interior and exterior of your property along with a description of its main features, then advertising this in their office, online and in local newspapers. They’ll also arrange viewings to give people tours of the house or flat, and they’ll hear offers from buyers, ideally taking one through to the exchange of contracts.
This can help you reduce your stress significantly when selling because the effort you’ll need to put in to selling is minimal. But the counter to this benefit is that you will need to pay the estate agent through commission that they’ll charge in exchange for doing all this work.
The average estate agent rate of commission is between 1.15 percent and 1.40 percent of a home’s final sale price, although it can be higher or lower than this. The fee is deducted immediately from the eventual sale proceeds, so that will add to your expenses.
Selling with an estate agent can also be a somewhat slow process and it may take many months or even more than a full year. And even then a buyer can make an offer but change their mind and cancel it, making the sale collapse – and they can do this without being penalised, so long as contracts have not yet been exchanged. This will require you to begin again with trying to find a buyer for your home, which could delay the overall process even further.
Selling at an auction
Auctioneers will handle most of the work needed to sell your home, including creating and marketing a listing, hosting the auction and ensuring completion of a successful sale.
Whilst this will limit the amount of work that you’ll have to do to sell your home, you will need to pay the auctioneer commission for this effort. The typical fee is 2.5 percent of a property’s final auction sale price and this will be subtracted right away from the final proceeds, which is not a good outcome for those homeowners who are looking to keep costs low when selling.
And beyond the costs, this is also not the fastest way to sell a property because there is a fair amount of waiting involved. There will be a pause of many weeks or even months between when you select this method of selling and when the auction is held. And if your home does sell, the buyer will usually have about a month to sign all of the required legal documents and complete the various other tasks necessary in order to finalise the sale of the property.
When you sell this way, you will be asked to choose a reserve price, and this is the lowest price at which you agree your home can sell. It’s vital to calculate a price that should generate some profit even after you pay the auctioneer their commission because otherwise you might risk only breaking even on the sale or even potentially selling your house or flat at a loss.
Remember also that if your home does not receive any bids during the auction then it remains unsold and you would have to try again with another option for seeking a buyer.
Selling to a quick home buyer
Quick buyers have this name because they can usually finalise the process of purchasing a home within a few short weeks, including the time that it takes to exchange contracts. They can do this as they have the funds available upfront to buy properties, with no waiting for many weeks or months to first get a mortgage, and so they’re often the fastest way to sell a home.
They’re also a great choice for homes that have an enforcement notice that other buyers may see as a problem property, because quick buyers are experts are making competitive and fast offers to purchase almost any type of house or flat no matter the existence of an issue like an enforcement notice and regardless of a home’s age, condition, location, shape, size or type.
Beyond homes with an enforcement notice, LDN Properties also has experience with purchasing flats with high levels of radon, houses that have noisy neighbours, homes located in high risk flooding zones, properties that have an improvement notice, converted flats, houses situated close to a mineshaft, eco homes, properties without a bathroom or kitchen, flats that don’t have a working boiler, Laing Easiform houses and many other varied examples.
Honest quick buyers will also never make you pay any commission when they purchase your property, which assists in reducing your overall selling expenses – compared to the fees that you’d have to pay an estate agent or auctioneer that are taken out of the sale proceeds.
Selling on your own
Another way to avoid fees when selling your home is to sell it without any help from a commission-charging third party like an auctioneer or an estate agent. But beware that even though you won’t need to pay any fees out of the sale proceeds, this saving might be cancelled out by the funds you’ll have to spend on all the tasks needed to find a buyer.
You’ll have a lot of work to do if you choose to sell without any assistance because it will be your responsibility to create a listing, advertise it, organise viewings and hear offers from buyers. This can quickly become very stressful and it’s not something you can just do in your spare time.
For these reasons you should only think about pursuing this option for selling if you have previously managed to find a buyer for a home with an enforcement notice, or if there’s a suitably qualified family member or friend who is willing to help for free with the sale. If not, it might take more than an entire year before you are able to secure a buyer.
And remember that, just as with homes sold through estate agents, someone can make an offer but then rescind it, which they can do without facing any penalties if you have not already exchanged contracts. This would cause the sale to fall apart and you would need to start over with trying to find a buyer, potentially adding many more months to the selling timeline.
If you would like to not pay commission when selling your house or flat, you could instead contact a zero-fee quick buyer such as LDN Properties. Not only would you enjoy the same benefit of avoiding any fees when selling but you would get the additional advantage of a much faster sale. That’s because quick buyers can generally finalise the process of buying a property within a handful of weeks, and that includes exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds.
Top questions and answers about property enforcement notices
Launched in 2003, LDN Properties has bought many homes with enforcement notices. Below you’ll see our answers to questions we’re frequently asked about selling this type of property:
Your top questions when selling property with enforcement notice
A law named the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 gives local councils the power to issue enforcement notices that identify when a homeowner has done some construction work at their property that violates planning control, such as exceeding the scope of planning permission. These notices direct the owner to take corrective action by a set deadline.
The term enforcement notice is sometimes used to refer to a range of different actions that a council could take, including stop notice that says the construction work you’re doing at your property must halt immediately and that it would be an offense to continue working, a notice that your construction work should seek retroactive planning permission, and other categories.
The exact details that a council will need to ensure is part of your enforcement notice will depend on the unique circumstances of the property, but typically these notices must include specific information about the alleged planning violation that has occurred, the date on which the notice takes effect, an explanation of the process for appealing the notice, and more.
Because someone that is considering making an offer to purchase your property could be concerned that liability for complying with the notice might pass to them as the new owner of the home. And ignoring or failing to comply with an enforcement notice could ultimately result in legal action and thousands of pounds of fines, which is too much of a risk for many buyers.
The law that established the power for local authorities to issue enforcement notices also gives homeowners who receive a notice the ability to challenge it through an appeal. This is certainly one option you could pursue but bear in mind that contesting an enforcement notice could take a very long time, cost a lot of money and there is no promise that you will succeed.
Not necessarily because you can avoid having to pay any commission if you opt for selling your home to a zero-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties or if you sell without any help from an estate agent or an auctioneer. But if you do decide to use an auctioneer or estate agent then they will charge you commission and this will be taken out of the eventual sale proceeds.
If you decide to sell your house or flat using the services of an estate agent or auctioneer, or if you sell without any third-party help, you should anticipate waiting at least several months before finding a buyer. But if you choose to sell your home to a no-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties then the selling timeline should only be a handful of weeks from start to finish.
