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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A further update.
I have now spoken again with the senior planning officer I referred to earlier (and he has himself spoken to the head of the department). They have said that they do not put evidence online for reasons of confidentiality (i.e. to protect the confidentiality of people mentioned in the evidence, and not the owner's confidentiality) (although they are reconsidering this as part of their review of the consultation process). However, he agreed that file itself is open to the public and that I could therefore come in and have a look at it. When I asked how it could be confidential and not put online yet publicly available for inspection, he agreed that there was some inconsistency (!!). He explained that his concern was that it was not for the public to start investigating the credibility or otherwise of the evidence supplied, it's for the council to do - and that's why they take a decision on whether to disclose online or not. He did say, however, that if concerns were raised about whether the application and evidence was genuine, the officers would investigate it further, particularly where there was compelling evidence provided or where there were several neighbours who all submitted comments that the property had been a single property for many years. He gave the impression that they would definitely not treat all comments submitted as irrelevant (as the original planning officer (the one assigned to this application) had told me).
Finally, he told me that the electricity bills are 2 photocopies of bills from May 2001 and August 2002.
The planning offices are open weekdays from 8.45am to 4.45pm. As I work full-time, I'm going to struggle to make it up there on a weekday. We desparately need as much info as possible about these 2 bills, including all reference numbers which would allow Powergen to confirm their credibility. Any volunteers?
In the meantime, I will submit a comment including photographs of the single door-bell, the Bairstow Eves particulars and the council tax valuation. The closing date for comments is, I've been told, 18th August.
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Permalink Reply by VIX on
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Bushy.
The bills are supposed to be originals, as a photo copy is easily forged.
I live very near the offices. Happy to go take a look?
Maybe Alan would like to join me.
I'll ask him.
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Many thanks Vix - can you email me the details when you've been? Might be worth taking a good look at the statutory declaration too and jotting down the details of it (so we can check electoral register etc.)
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Bushy, protecting confidentiality makes good sense from one point of view. Thousands of people (and software 'bots'?) can trawl through online documents to harvest email addresses etc. We don't want to discourage anyone from writing-in comments and objections to planning applications.
But to 'rebalance' an online system and make public access a reality, it seems to me that offline documents still have to be freely available.
If nobody has time to go to the Planning Office on your behalf then I'm happy to be your 'backstop'.
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Re:
"He explained that his concern was that it was not for the public to start investigating the credibility or otherwise of the evidence supplied, it's for the council to do - and that's why they take a decision on whether to disclose online or not. He did say, however, that if concerns were raised about whether the application and evidence was genuine, the officers would investigate it further,"
Isnt this exactly our point?
That our concern is that the officers are NOT doing their jobs properly and we end up having to play public dectectives and do their jobs for them?
If a trained officer cannot spot an obvious fake, what hope do we have? If an enforcement officer allerted to an illegal conversion dosn't even check the council bands-what hope then?
The public would not be concerning themselves with such matters if we had confidence in the planning department or so many illegal builds were slipping through the net in such alarming numbers.
If there are corrupt officers working at the planning office should there not be a proper investigation be it corruption or sheer lazyness? It happens with the police, and it happened in social servics with baby P.
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Re"Finally, he told me that the electricity bills are 2 photocopies of bills from May 2001 and August 2002."
I mean why are they ALWAYS really old bills submitted as evidence?
That's six and a half years ago, you cant get away with that anywhere else can you? You always have to show an up to date bill as proof of ID.
What about council tax bills for the two flats? Where are the Gas bills? Thames water? TV licences for two flats? Electorial roll? two six year old lecky bills seem a little flimsy as the only proof.
Alan I happy to tag along, let me know when.
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Permalink Reply by Alison P on
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You're absolutely right VIX - why are the bills so old? I just applied for something recently and I had to send the most up to date bills that I had, so it seem really bizarre letting people get away with things that are from that far back. That said, could it be because they want to show that back in 2001 etc it was two flats, is that relevant here?
Sorry if I've got confused - I'm finding it hard to keep track of all the crappy convertion stories that seem to be going on.
Good luck with the visit...
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lol [Alison] my head is a bit fried too!
Just because it may once have been two flats, dosnt mean it can simply go back to two again And yes, I think they have used 6yrd bills because they haven't got a leg to stand on.
Gas Bills, Council Tax Bills, Water Bills? Tenants for two flats? All the normal paper crap one can't help collect over the years? They just have two really old lecky bills.
Do I not recall someone looking through the letter box and seeing that all the doors had locks on them-I just found the post;
"There are locks on all the doors visable from the outside, including internal doors - would you have locks on every door? Think not."
Rest my case
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It's an application for a certificate of lawfulness. They have to prove it's been 2 flats for more than 4 years from, I think the date of application. So the earliest bills they could provide are 2005. Bills from 2001/2 fit the, er, bill. Though I think it's very fishy that the bills are this old. I mean, this isn't the original owner we're talking about, it's someone who bought the house earlier this year. So how on earth would he have got electricity bills from tenants who lived there in 2001/2? Who actually keeps their bills that long?
Vix - it's not the only proof lodged. They have also filed a statutory declaration from someone who says he lived there as a tenant. They've also referred to the council tax valuation (bizarrely because it shows it's been a single house since 1993 - even the planning officer himself said that appeared to defeat their case!).
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Bushy
Thanks for the laugh! That's so stupid! As everyone on this post knows the council tax has always stated single dwelling?
Thanks for doing the math re the 2005 date. Its so bloody obvious that they are trying to fudge it all. Can't wait to see the declaration, the whole thing stinks.
If the owners are selling the same property back to each other they will try and pull this stunt, it also hides them trying to convert it. Its what happened next door to us.
Re:
So how on earth would he have got electricity bills from tenants who lived there in 2001/2? Who actually keeps their bills that long?
Because they are fake. That's why the reference numbers are key to finding out.
Are we all losing track of the fact that even if it is has been two flats you cant just turn it into bedsit units of do a roof conversion without planning permission.
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Alison
Another thought on supplying old bills is that i think they hope if someone does ring the utility supplier up they will say that records don't go back that far.
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