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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Thanks Alan, that's good to know. Though so far, the owner at 69 has submitted no evidence at all to support his application - instead, he appears to have submitted his plans for the current development (including the illegal loft conversion!!).
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Local councils must take back control of illegal conversions. If the legislation is there, it must be used more effectively. And if the law is not strong enough it needs to be changed.
Having said that, I am not opposed to all conversions. Houses - over decades and sometimes over centuries - change their configuration and purpose. As a student I was relieved to find a cheap room. When I was single and on a low-wage, I rented a tiny Highbury flat - really two subdivided rooms. It was perfect. The whole house was later turned back into a single family home.
What I don't accept is street after street being poorly and illegally converted into 'investments'. With people crammed into badly managed hutches by slum landlords interested solely in the money. And it's usually public money. I wonder how many people have become millionaires from the public purse? (Today Peter Rachman would have been a valued "business partner" of the public agencies.)
Out-of-control conversions degrade neighbourhoods. They frequently damage the people living there. 'Social cohesion', 'placemaking', and 'regeneration' will be empty words as long as this is not tackled properly.
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Permalink Reply by VIX on
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Two quick cross check to see the houses history:
Look online at the council tax bands-it will clearly state if the house was a house or flats, or when it changed.
The owners need to show bills proving the house was two flats.
We used this as hard evidence against the bedsit development next door to us that Alan is talking about.
These developers think that if they 'convert first' the council will let the build go through on a dodgy Certificates of Lawfulness.
Radio 4 informed me that no 71 Effingham Road was ilegally converted too-maybe the same developers? Something to ponder anyways.
The council need to get on top of this. Don't let planning give you the run around, someone has probably taken a bribe if this gets though!
Council tax band detail enclosed. - Attachments:
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Council tax band no10.png, 89 KB
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Permalink Reply by Anette on
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Alan, I am really interested in how they discovered the malpractice. I am still looking into ways of getting 72 Seymour Road put back to 2 flats (illegally converted to 4, and aplined for a certificate 2 months after the 4 years were up!). I refuse to be beaten! Would really appreciate it if you could send me a message.
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Hi Annette, I'm sending you a message shortly. 21:58 6 July.
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I'm also interested Alan. Does all the evidence from the applicant get put on the Haringey web site? And to what extent, if any, are the council planning officers required to check the bona fides of the evidence? Or do they just take it at face value? For example, if the evidence submitted is an electricity bill, it wouldn't take much for the planning officer hearing the case to phone the electricity company themselves to verify the statement (or at least whether the property to which the electricity was provided was indeed registered as a flat and not a house).
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Hi Bushy and Anette. There's a lot of stuff and I can send a summary to you. I'd rather not post it publicly as I don't want to alert any unscrupulous owners/landlords to the material the BBC now has and is continuing to collect to make the programme.
And it's almost certainly going to be over the limit for a message on NING.
So can you both please send me a blank email to:
alan.stanton@virgin.net
I will reply tomorrow morning.
Thanks.
Alan
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Bushy, you may get some comfort from reading of a simillar situation in Hewitt.
In truth I'd been on the case of this one since March last year but was keeping my head down since Patrick told me that the landlord was violent.
Getting Planning on the case and keeping them on it involved weekly or bi-weekly calls between about March and June and more infrequent calls since.
To cut a long story short, Haringey slapped of reconvert notice on the landlord, the appealed to the Planning Inspector and the appeal has just been rejected. SO far, so good - even if it took eighteen months and persistence.
You'll see from my post that the devil's in the follow-up. It's all meaningless unless we can get Haringey to take enforcement action and insist on the reconvert.
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Thanks Hugh. Sadly, I can't take much comfort at all - see my post in the same thread. I have been through all this already with another conversion on my street where enforcement began 4 years ago and resulted in the defendant/owner skipping the court hearing, the police not bothering to try to execute a warrant and the owner effectively having got away with it because there is no effective process to ensure warrants are executed for lesser crimes like a failure to reconvert. Despite their having the owner's home address!!
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Bushy, that's horrible, and you should alert David Lammy's office about this one, I am sure they'd love to pick it up again. Link to the form is in another post under the HMO tag. Also, Nilgun Canver (nilgun.canver@haringey.gov.uk) should be alerted, she heads up the HMO working group, and what you've mentioned is a complete embarassment to them. Go on! Don't give up!!!!!
One of the houses opposite me got caught out converting from 2 to 3 flats, and they're now in
the process of converting back to two. Hah! So it DOES work, do not give up, and surely the fact that one dodgy landlord skipped the country will not mean that he'll win ever more and pave the way for more dodgy conversions? C'mon! We're here for help, advice and moral support. I think we all need to handle our own roads, and then re-group here for help and advice. What do you reckon?
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Thanks Annette. I feel your love :-)
Nora's already been on the case - last I heard David had written again to the Chief Superintendent in the area asking why the warrant has not been enforced. Waiting for an update.
The landlord has not skipped the country - he lives up the road in (I think) Enfield. He just wasn't there/refused to answer on the only occasion they tried to execute the warrant (you don't get told the details, only that the warrant wasn't executed). And they've never been back to try again as far as I know.
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