Wednesday, Feb 03, 2010
This might raise some people's blood pressure.
Yahoo: Judge rules Englishman's castle can't be his home
A wealthy farmer who secretly built a mock Tudor castle complete with ramparts, turrets and cannon behind a wall of hay bales to evade planning laws in prime English countryside lost a court fight on Monday to save it from demolition.
Posted by mr g @ 03:42 PM (670 views) Add Comment
9 Comments
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1. Crunchy said...
No sympathy from me. We have had a decade full of these kind of chancers.
No planning permission, knock it down.
No mortgage, no auction sale.
No wage proof or job, no mortgage
etc...
It is a good story, but we have enough Fiddlers already.
2. doomwatch said...
... and it's about time the HMRC removed the over generous tax dodges to "Farm" owners instead of harassing small businesses.
3. freemanphil said...
Forget houses, our family courts mean that we do not even own our children. Listen to the following interview with Liberal Democrat MP, and Group Chair of the Liberal Democrats on the City Council of Birmingham discussing abuses of child protection and social services. He revealed that only 3 parents in 1000 cases win when government attempts to take their kids. This is a greater conviction rate than in Soviet Russia.
Alex talks with British politician John Hemming, a Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley and Group Chair of the Liberal Democrats on the city council of Birmingham. Hemming campaigns against electoral fraud and the abuses of child protection and social services in England.
http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/
4. This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.
5. stillthinking said...
An interesting reflection of the value of planning permission. This house apparently cost 50K to build, and certainly looks impressive enough (at the moment of course).
Planning permission is too valuable. I dread to think how many corrupt council planning officials there are, doling out the difference between 5 million and nothing every week.
6. str 2007 said...
stillthinking
Not sure where you got the £50k cost from (it's not in the article) sounds on the light side, but you're absolutely right, planning permission carries far too much value.
I've said before all towns and villages should have to run with a set amount of available plots (when one is bought for development another must be made available) to give would be self builders and small developers some choice.
This policy would not only help keep a lid on ever escalating land values but also put hard cash into local economies as people built their own houses.
7. drewster said...
str2007,
The £50k figure was quoted in a BBC article on this story.
Not sure how accurate that is though. Redrow (builders) hit the headlines a few years ago with promises of new homes for £60,000 - BBC News: £60k homes for first-time buyers [2005]. If they can't even build one-bedroom flats for £50k, then I doubt you could build a castle on that much either.
I don't profess to be an expert on the subject of building costs - all my knowledge comes from watching Sarah Beeny. However even the lowest budgets on Property Ladder are typically in excess of £40,000, and that's just to tart up the interior.
There was a similar case recently with a barn-conversion near Potters Bar. The owner claimed it had cost him £500,000 to turn into a house - although I suspect that figure was massaged upwards, in order to garner sympathy from the judge. "You can't knock down my barn-house, it cost £500,000 to build!"
8. stillthinking said...
I can't remember Metro or Standard. I did think on the low side but basically houses are cheap to build but expensive to purchase, and the more people who know that the better.
9. markj69 str05 said...
'houses are cheap to build '... Depending on who's building it! Yes, you get more value for your money if you self build, and if you know people, or are yourself in the building trade it can be exremely cost effective. £50K does sound light though.
10 years ago I extended, 2 reasonable rooms 1st floor + pitched tiled roof (Above an existing ext'n), cost me £14K, because the builder next door was doing the same.
I know someone with a barn conversion cost them £250K for the convert only - and the building co. said they made a loss at the end of the project!
My brother is now mid-way through a ground floor ext'n not much bigger than my early one, and it's costing about £45K. Have materials and labour really increased 200% in 10years?