Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Another Illegal Conversion. Information and Help Required.
All
I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed but no.69 Effingham Road is being gutted at the moment. It was bought very cheaply (for 270k) earlier this year by a company registered in Cyprus (suspicious already). The address given is care of a financial services company in Enfield that has no web presence whatsoever.
I wandered past the other day to quiz the builders. Peaking inside, I could see that they were almost certainly preparing the carcass for a separate downstairs and upstairs. There were 2 builders on site. The first initially said they were keeping it as a house but when I quizzed him about the dividing frames, he said that they were 'partitioning' it. The second builder then started to get a bit more heated and defensive, initially saying they were keeping it as a house but when I pointed out that they were clearly dividing it up, changing tack to say that was what it had always been like. The more I questioned, the more defensive and aggressive he got, saying things like, "what difference to you anyway?" etc.
While I can't be 100% sure, this seems pretty much a guaranteed dodgy conversion. I'm also sure it was a single house before.
Have you seen the works? Do you know if it was a house or bed/sits or separate flats before?
I will be lodging a complaint with planning first thing Tuesday and would please urge everyone to do the same. The more complaints planning get, the harder it will be for them not to action swiftly.
I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed but no.69 Effingham Road is being gutted at the moment. It was bought very cheaply (for 270k) earlier this year by a company registered in Cyprus (suspicious already). The address given is care of a financial services company in Enfield that has no web presence whatsoever.
I wandered past the other day to quiz the builders. Peaking inside, I could see that they were almost certainly preparing the carcass for a separate downstairs and upstairs. There were 2 builders on site. The first initially said they were keeping it as a house but when I quizzed him about the dividing frames, he said that they were 'partitioning' it. The second builder then started to get a bit more heated and defensive, initially saying they were keeping it as a house but when I pointed out that they were clearly dividing it up, changing tack to say that was what it had always been like. The more I questioned, the more defensive and aggressive he got, saying things like, "what difference to you anyway?" etc.
While I can't be 100% sure, this seems pretty much a guaranteed dodgy conversion. I'm also sure it was a single house before.
Have you seen the works? Do you know if it was a house or bed/sits or separate flats before?
I will be lodging a complaint with planning first thing Tuesday and would please urge everyone to do the same. The more complaints planning get, the harder it will be for them not to action swiftly.
Tags for Forum Posts: casework, effingham road, illegal conversion
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Stuart on
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Yes, but note that I don't think this is the address for the owner, just a care of address. The registered owner is "C I House Plan Co Ltd (incorporated in Cyprus) care of 85 Munster Gardens, London N13 5DU". A quick Google shows that the only activity at that address is Colin Palmer Financial Services:
http://www.ienfield.co.uk/profile/financial-services/4369/Colin-Pal...
Might be worth phoning to find out the connection. Do post if they are connected. A phone campaign - now you're talking! With a 6-week sabbatical just started, I can think of no better way to spend my time than harrassing an unscrupulous developer. Yes!!
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108 to 112 is actually a rare success for the Planning Dept. They were converted into 2 flats years ago, and a certificate of lawfulness obtained. However, they were then subsequently converted into 4 separate flats after that. Planning pursued this one vigorously (and for a long long time) even though the developer was a British Virgin Islands registered company (making enforcement particutlarly torturous). They have finally succeeded and what you see is the reconversion of all 4 properties back into 2 flats (sadly not to a single dwelling). They just haven't got rid of the excess meters yet.
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Permalink Reply by mathew on
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Saw some stairs being installed going up to the loft area.Unusually, they were in the front bedroom.Plus,noticed an old newspaper in the skip,from 1953.It was bunched up and thus not read recently;call themselves builders?
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An update on 69 Effingham, in case people are still following it. There has been an application for a certificate of lawfulness for an existing use (as 2 flats) on the property, and all the documents are available online: http://www.planningservices.haringey.gov.uk/portal/servlets/Applica.... I'm sure others know far more than I about whether this is an appropriate application or not (I've never read one of them before now). I'm assuming, though, that this means the owner is claiming that the property was already in two flats. I've lived across from it for 18 months now but don't know whether it was a single house or flats. In the meantime, work continues apace on the property.....
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This application is utter bull. If you look at the front door, you can see there's only 1 doorbell. Plus the applicant hasn't even offered any evidence that the property has been 2 flats for more than 4 years.
A further update. I spoke today to Patrick Sullivan, the Planning Enforcement officer assigned to this property. He said he had visited the property on 9 June. He said that from what he could see, it is 2 flats and there was no permission for it to be converted. I then asked him if he had gone in and taken a look around the property, he said he hadn't because no-one was there. So I then asked how he could have ascertained from outside that it was now 2 flats if he hadn't gone past the front door. He was a bit vague but said maybe he had been able to look inside but anyway, he has now written to the owners (and hence the application for a certificate of lawfulness).
1. According to Patrick, the house was converted to 2 flats a long time ago, but converted back to a single house and had been so since at least the mid-Nineties.
2. It is quite clear (and I have looked through the windows and the front door) that what is happening here is NOT a redecoration of an existing conversion into 2 flats but rather a conversion of the property into at least 4 or 5 or more tiny bedsits. When I first spoke to the builders, they told me they were "partitioning" it, but when I pressed, another, moodier builder started to get aggressive and said they were just keeping as flats which it had always been.
3. I have had strong words with Patrick about his failure to actually to inspect the property. The KEY ISSUE IS THIS: the owner is furiously converting the property asap to lots of bedsits and Planning's failure to spot this (and instead to look at whether or not the property is already 2 flats) means that they are barking up the wrong tree. Even if the owners get a certificate of lawfulness for 2 flats, that's irrelevant - what's going is an illegal conversion to far more than that.
5. If there were already 2 flats there, it is illegal to do a further loft conversion, which, judging from Matthew's comment above, is also part of the work.
6. Patrick has now promised to revisit the property and do a full inspection some time next week and to let me know his conclusion.
I URGE EVERYONE ON EFFINGHAM TO PLEASE STAY ON THE CASE FOR THIS BECAUSE IT'S CLEAR THAT WITHOUT PERSISTENCE AND PRESSURE, HARINGEY'S PLANNING ARE GOING TO LET THIS ONE THROUGH BY DEFAULT. PLEASE OPPOSE THIS APPLICATION.
PLEASE ALSO PHONE PATRICK, WRITE, STOP BY THE PROPERTY AND NOSE AROUND, ANYTHING THAT CAN PUT PRESSURE ON THE OWNER AND ON HARINGEY.
Thanks
Bushy
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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Thanks Bushy for keeping us updated. Only just seen this thread so will get on to Justin on Monday.
If it was converted back to a house in the nineties, wouldn't it still be illegal to convert to two flats never mind five bedsits? I thought this area put a stop to converting houses in to flats?
Case number HGY/2009/1080
http://www.planningservices.haringey.gov.uk/portal/servlets/Applica...
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If it's converted back to a house, yup, it's still illegal to convert to 2 flats. Patrick told me that this was the basis on which he had written to the owners (and hence their application for a certificate of lawfulness). Though of course if the conversion to 2 flats was more than 4 years ago, a certificate of lawfulness is inevitable.
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Permalink Reply by Anette on
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This house was converted back from 2 flats in April 1993. It's currently in Band E, and has been so since 1993.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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You may have already done this but you can also involve David Lammy in your case by filling in the form available on this page (scroll down past the blurb to the bottom).
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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As a ward councillor, I was alerted by local residents in Tottenham Hale about a very dubious Certificate of Lawfulness. They also contacted Nora Mulready in David Lammy's office. Nora, the residents and I did a great deal of work on this and discovered hard evidence of malpractice by the owners. As a result the Council is planning to take legal action. And also tightening up the whole system for Certificates of Lawfulness.
Even better, the residents have now been in touch with Radio 4's Face the Facts. The programme has done further research on this and other similar cases - including in two roads on the Ladder. This included - I'm told - contacting Liz; and getting valuable information from Ian Sygrave chair of the Local Community Safety Partnership.
I'll update HoL members as I get more news about the programme. And about action council officers are taking.
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