An Englishmans house is his castle.......

[Halb]

BlackLabel said:

Is this really possible?

Seems it is.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/property/luxury...

[Jobbo]

Mr_B said:

LarryUSA said:

Perhaps he could even sell it?

He has already tried claiming he sold it in an effort to get around the law.

There's an article in this week's Law Society Gazette which has some more detail of this sale: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/legal-updates/loca...

Seems to be complete freeman of the land wibble. Should we be surprised?

[Vocal Minority]

Timmy40 said:

.....until the Council make you knock it down.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-323321...

I feel a bit sorry for this guy, after all he's built a fairly modest 4 bed house on his farm, admittedly without planning, but then it's hardly an eye sore and not as though the countryside is about to become studded with mock castles.

Perhaps there's an element of jealously from the Council pencil heads?

Why in the hell is 'jealousy' the first thing everyone goes to on here?! It's like a sort of self soothing for when they know somethings wrong, but they want to absolve themselves of blame 'they're probably just jealous'

It's the law. It applies to everyone from the government down to the private individual. No exclusions. No exceptions.

[FiF]

The ridiculous side is that he could have whacked up some hideous farm building, parked a load of rusty machinery around the place, stuck a few pigs there too so the area stunk to high heaven. That would have probably been OK.

/devil's advocate

[anonymous-user]

Jobbo said:

Seems to be complete freeman of the land wibble. Should we be surprised?

Well no, we shouldn't be surprised.

As soon as you look at him you know he's some hippy freeman of the land type.

[Adrian W]

Vocal Minority said:

It's the law. It applies to everyone from the government down to the private individual. No exclusions. No exceptions.

That is a bit far fetched, if the government want to do something outside the law, they just change the law.

[Vocal Minority]

Adrian W said:

That is a bit far fetched, if the government want to do something outside the law, they just change the law.

I work in regeneration. I have seen promoted schemes fall foul of the law and not get the green light.

[Funk]

BlackLabel said:

LarryUSA said:

It doesn't really need to be knocked down though, does it? I've seen a few TV programs where they pick an entire house up and move it elsewhere. Perhaps he could even sell it?

Not sure if serious.

Is this really possible?

Indeed: "Moving a 7600 ton apartment building to create a boulevard in Alba Iulia, Romania, 1987"

This happened in the early spring of 1987. They had a tough choice given that they had to rework the infrastructure and make way for the boulevard. They decided to move the building 55 meters(180ft) away but not before splitting it into two. Building which housed over 80 families.

The whole operation took 5 hours and 40 minutes and and the (now) 2 separate buildings were moved apart on a 33 degree inclined angle.

Fun fact(s): People remained inside at all times and just to prove a point, a woman decided to place a glass of water on the edge of her balcony, it didn't spill a drop.

The building(s) remained connected to all utilities (water, electricity etc) during the moving process

[Sheepshanks]

Jobbo said:

Mr_B said:

LarryUSA said:

Perhaps he could even sell it?

He has already tried claiming he sold it in an effort to get around the law.

There's an article in this week's Law Society Gazette which has some more detail of this sale: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/legal-updates/loca...

Seems to be complete freeman of the land wibble. Should we be surprised?

Would be funny if HMRC sent his missus a bill for stamp duty!

[98elise]

FiF said:

The ridiculous side is that he could have whacked up some hideous farm building, parked a load of rusty machinery around the place, stuck a few pigs there too so the area stunk to high heaven. That would have probably been OK.

/devil's advocate

If its a farm whats the issue?

There was no permission to build there, but he built anyway. May be he should have paid for a building plot like anyone else has to.

[Timmy40]

From what I've heard he now says he can't knock it down becauase newts have moved into the pond, and bats have started to roost in it. The irony is he could have bought a run down old farmhouse got permission to demolish it and put up something 50% bigger all legally and above board. Which is what I've just done.

[Roo]

Eventually it'll come to this:

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/canterbury/news/house-...

[Puddenchucker]

He has, apparently, started demolishing it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-359282...

[RYH64E]

In a way it's a shame because the quality of work appeared to be very good, but I don't think there was any real alternative to demolition, he was taking the piss.

[anonymous-user]

I'll believe it when I see it.

[BlackLabel]

And it's finally gone.





http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-364458...

[Getragdogleg]

Yes, knocking that down really improved the area.

[zarjaz1991]

His real crime was taking on the council.

Councils will NOT tolerate insubordination, and anyone who dares to get a bit defiant like this will be dealt with severely in order to show everyone who's boss.

Obviously, this only applies to ordinary people. Tesco in Stockport built their store too large for the planning consent they had, but the council let them keep it. If you have enough money in brown envelopes, you're ok.

[anonymous-user]

Getragdogleg said:

Yes, knocking that down really improved the area.

Agreed - it was a horrible monstrosity of a building.

[grumbledoak]

Inevitable.

I don't doubt that brown envelopes would have been a far more effective approach than open disobedience.