Living in a hay barn - actually a £500,000 house!

I've heard this story before - but what really surprises me is that anyone would want to live inside a windowless house? Sky lights alone wouldn't do it for me
 
There are far worse things on people's land.

Silly thing to do though tbh and am not sure how he thought he'd get away with it.

On the other hand the planners allowed the structure and as far as agricultural barns go its not the ugliest I've seen and to be honest you wouldn't know if it was filled with hay or gym equipment and bedrooms.

I think its good to have planning constraints but what I don't like is the inconsistencies of planning decisions. There have been many decisions down my road where the allowed developments are so inconsistent we're all convinced backhanders are at work.
 
I dont blame them for trying !! What harm were they doing ? In my opinion the council should have granted them a tie on the barn so that they could live there "out of necessity" but not change it in anyway nor sell it on as a residence.

Damn councils.
 
mrussell said:
I dont blame them for trying !! What harm were they doing ? In my opinion the council should have granted them a tie on the barn so that they could live there "out of necessity" but not change it in anyway nor sell it on as a residence.

Damn councils.
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I don't blame them either tbh, you can't blame someone for trying to provide for his family. What happened to the guy who built the ' tudor type castle' on his land I wonder.
 
PucciNPoni said:
I've heard this story before - but what really surprises me is that anyone would want to live inside a windowless house? Sky lights alone wouldn't do it for me
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I'd far rather live there though than in some high rise or one of thos identical boxes on a housing estate where you grow a rose bush and half the garden is gone. At least his family have space to breathe and most time is spent outdoors when you live in the country.
 
Tough! Planning laws are there for a reason, he was biding his time until he could prove he has lived there unchallenged for 10yrs then the barn would come down and bingo a legal house. It would make a joke out of applications for dwellings that have been turned down where there has been genuine need.
He is a property developer, so his investment of agricultural land and barn, 9yrs of living in it could have made him a very tidy profit, would he have stayed there? Probably not, it would have been sold on and he would do the same somewhere else.
 
LOL! Hadn't heard about this before. The thing is, he clearly knew the rules and decided to try and get around them, I don't see how you can have much sympathy that it didn't work.

I do think planning laws, and the way the local authorities can make their own rules in this country are ridiculous, but you have to have some control over it, otherwise there'd be shanty towns springing up everywhere!
 
Planning laws are ridiculous - why if you own the land can you not build a house to live in?? its not like they were buildling 20 houses and selling them???

also if people want to build a home then maybe a law of they cannot sell this for 5 - 10 years??
 
Tinks81 said:
Planning laws are ridiculous - why if you own the land can you not build a house to live in?? its not like they were buildling 20 houses and selling them???

also if people want to build a home then maybe a law of they cannot sell this for 5 - 10 years??
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Ah but that would be far too sensible :D , god knows what sort of a boring drab and uniform country we would be living in now if there had been planing laws 100s of years ago !!! hey you cant build that castle there !!!!!!!!
 
Planning laws are ridiclous. My parents got planning on a site a few years ago and the neighbours tried to sue them because the neighbours had to spend 20K's on digging down 10ft so the house in was line with the other houses on the road. My parents didn't have to do this.

My parents ended up not wanting to bulding a house there because they didn't want to live next door to these people and the neighbours ended up forking out money for something they didn't need to do in the 1st place. Muppets.
 
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