Bought house off plans, now changes on site.

We bought a house in a new estate off the plans approx. 2 years ago. Moved in 15 months ago. We paid extra on top of the base price for a house overlooking a public green space. For the last year, the 'green space' was left as a building site, it was just seeded and levelled last week.

The problem is that construction has started directly in front of our house of a water tank and pumphouse on the corner of the green space. The water tank will be a steel tank 7m in diameter, 2.5m high. We weren't given any information about this when we bought the house, it wasn't shown on the plans. We only found out about it when the foundations were put down last week.

The builder has told us that the tank is temporary, until the Council complete a water mains scheme nearby. However the Council has told us it could be at least 2008 before its complete. They gave planning permission for the tank and pumphouse, but they are only shown on the watermain layout plan, not on any of the other site plans.

We feel that we were misled by the builder, who sold us the house based on it overlooking a green space. We feel that we won't be able to sell the house until the water tank is gone, as it will be a complete eyesore, directly in front of our house.

What do people think? Is something that will affect your house for 2-3 years minimum considered material when selling a house from a siteplan?
Would it be considered misleading not to inform the buyer of it?

Any advice as to how to proceed? There are about 6 houses in the estate directly affected by the construction.

Talk to a solicitor.

It's a question of contract law and whether statements made by the builder form part of the contract with you.
i.e. did the builder represent that the space was to be kept as a green space, and did you rely on this representation to enter the contract. (And whether there were any terms in the written contract saying that the water main drawings were to be regarded as something you had seen etc.)
Then the question arises whether the space can still be considered a green space - i.e was the representation correct.

Depending on the precise facts of the case, you might succeed.

This is not unusual- quite often a builder will be requested and conditioned by the planning authority to provide alternative measures to deal with surface water and foul water until local public sewers and infrastructure are in place or improved. It's unfortunate but there's probably not a lot you can do about it- you are not entitled to a view as such and the pump assembly will serve all houses in the scheme.

Similar happened in our estate after we moved in - there wasn't sufficient pressure in the cc mains to feed all the houses - the council suggested and the builder agreed to put in an underground resevoir roughly the same size of yours. we've moved in just under two years now and our pumping arrangement was due to be short term while fingal cc finished off the swords ring main which was due in a few months (late 2004/early 2005) - needless to say we're still waiting !

The problem with this storage tank is that its going to be ABOVE ground. We are trying to get a drawing of it from the builder to find out exactly how high it will be, but they are refusing to give us one so far.

So in front of our living room window will be a big steel tank, where there was meant to be a green space.

Was there a planning permission notice posted or was it part of the general planning permission for the estate?

The planning permission was granted in July 2004, before we bought the house. The water tank and pump house are only shown on one drawing on the planning application - on the water main layout. We checked the planning application before we bought the site, but of course didn't pay much attention to the drainage drawings. The general site plan doesn't show the tank and pumphouse, the area is indicated as a green space. There are no elevation drawings of the tank and pumphouse in the planning application which show how high they will be, they are just indicated as a disgram - a circle and a rectangle on the water main layout. I've been onto the planner and engineer for the area to see if they know how big they are, but haven't had any reply.

They were never mentioned by the developer selling the house - we were told it was to be a green space, no building on it, and we paid extra for it on that basis.

Would like to give an update on what has happened regarding the above.

Last Friday, the residents staged a sit-in on the site of the proposed pumphouse and water tank to prevent any further construction until it is confirmed that the development has planning permission. The Council have been unable to confirm this so far, the issue has now been referred to the Enforcement Section and we are expecting a decision by the end of the week.

In the meantime, the sit-in continues. We feel that if the water tank is installed, it will never be removed, planning permission or not, as the builder can always apply for retention. We are lobbying our politicians for support but everything is moving very slowly. It seems bizarre to us that the Council could not tell us immediately if the tank and pumphouse have planning permission.

Someone once told me that if you don't know your neighbours, its a sign that everything is going well in your area. Its very true - we've been living in our house for about a year and had only ever spoken to our next door neighbour. Now everyone is talking, there's a great spirit to try and oppose this being built on our green space.

Carmel said:

It seems bizarre to us that the Council could not tell us immediately if the tank and pumphouse have planning permission.

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Sounds fairly typical of Irish 'Planners' to me. They are the biggest bunch of sleeveeens I have ever come across. The same planners would hound you over a Sky dish though because you are an easy target .

Someone once told me that if you don't know your neighbours, its a sign that everything is going well in your area. Its very true - we've been living in our house for about a year and had only ever spoken to our next door neighbour. Now everyone is talking, there's a great spirit to try and oppose this being built on our green space.

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Good stuff, ye have come together and will be able to make noise and get stuff done now. Its an ill wind and all that . Get yeer sub committees sorted and then.

Set up a meeting with the head of Water and Sanitation in the council to find out why they took 100s of 1000s of planning contributions from the builder and spent none of it on services . Let one lot persecute him . If the tank is a temporary structure as they say it should be sitting on top of a 40ft trailer and ready to be trucked out of there at short notice. It should not be permanent and disfiguring the green area.

Set up a meeting with the Head of Planning in the council and get a single enforcement official appointed to your estate as a liason. Get a name and phone number as a minimum. Let another lot persecute them .

Once the builders room to shyster is narrowed things will improve.

Want to give update on our protest, thankfully it appears to be a happy ending.

Last week, the planning department issued an enforcement notice to the developer stating that the water tank doesn't have planning permission and instructing him to remove the partial construction that he had carried out.

It took us 6 weeks of a sit-in on the site, lots of lobbying of politicians, etc. to get this result. The developer has a month to take it down under the terms of the enforcment notice.

Just to let people know that sometimes you can stand up to the developers and get a result. But its hard work.......

did the planners enforce their own conditions wholeheartedly or did it take extreme pressure to get them out to do their job ??

The planning permission seemed to be a bit of a 'grey area', a technicality. The tank was shown on a drainage drawing but everything else on that drawing was underground. There were no elevations of it and it wasn't mentioned in the planning ad. Also it appeared that the drainage department had given the developer the go ahead without the knowledge of the planning department. This of course if what we understand to have happened from various sources, we weren't actually told. So the Council was really slow to make a decision on it. I think they were making sure that they were covered.

The process itself is also slow though. After a warning letter is issued, the developer has 4 weeks to make submissions before the enforcment notice can be issued. So the legislation seems to be in favour of the developer. Basically if we hadn't protested, the tank would be in place. There was no way the Council would have acted in time to prevent it going in.

Also, we found it impossible to get answers from the Council. We ended up lobbying our local politicians who got onto the Council for us. It certainly opened my eyes. I would have thought that the Council would have been working for us, but that wasn't the case at all. We were lucky that an election is coming up that the politicians were interested.