Appeal against Haringey Council Enforcement notice by:
Mrs S Lambrou
85 Munster Gardens, Palmers Green, London
LONDON
N13 5DU
Not upheld - given 6 months to return building to 'previous' state.
Costs - partially awarded in favour of Council.
[See attached documents or go to: http://www.pcs.planningportal.gov.uk/pcsportal/ViewCase.asp?casenam... ].
Well done Haringey Council Officers and thankyou to the Bristol Planning Inspector.
Well done. That's good news. Reading through the judgment, a couple of things jump out:
- it took Haringey nearly THREE years to issue a valid enforcement notice (having first issued an invalid one and then served it incorrectly).
- the utility bills submitted by the owner must have been false (a very common practice among those seeking a Certificate of Lawfulness). I'm amazed that Haringey didn't bother to phone up the utilities to make a simple call to verify whether they were genuine or not.
There was no application. The council were notified about the works and issued an enforcement notice. This was the appeal against the enforcement notice.
Do any Wightman Road residents know anything about this application for a certificate of lawfulness at 61 Wightman Road? Has the work been done recently or is this a genuine case where there's been 2 flats for well over 4 years? It seems a little strange because an application was made earlier this year then withdrawn. That often happens when the applicant's first application doesn't have sufficient evidence. They then go away and get (i.e. fabricate) new evidence that's much stronger.
Let me know as a group of us are presently working on scrutinising all COL applications in the area that are now made to see if they are genuine or not.
Yes, there was 2-3 weeks' interior work done on No.61 in July-August, apparently including plumbing and chippy work and obviously some building or plastering. Followed immediately by three estate agents' letting signs (HA=Hornsey Agencies, Foxton or Paul Simon and one other). I don't really know whether this was conversion work or just refurb.
I've done a bit more digging and I think this one is lawful. According to voa.gov.uk, council tax has been paid separately on a ground floor flat and a first floor flat since 1998 (indicating the recent work wasn't conversion work). As it only takes 4 years of use as 2 flats to get a COL, I don't see any value in opposing this one.
Permalink Reply by VIX on October 15, 2009 at 14:13
Bushy
Don't take the council tax records [VOA] as being reliable, there is chance that these are being tampered with too, as yet another way of fabricating evidence.
We are looking into seeing if, and how easily a person can change or tamper with VOA records.