A Lawful Development Certificate has just been achieved for the owner of an existing HMO in Leamington Spa ensuring that they can not be threatened with enforcement action in the future.
In April 2012 Warwick District Council introduced an Article 4 Direction which meant that the previous permitted development rights for the change of use of a house to a small HMO in the Leamington Spa area were removed.
As a result a client of ET Planning sought out support for achieving lawfulness for their existing small HMO which could no longer be considered lawful under permitted development.
As the property owners had been using the property as an HMO for over 10 years, this showed continuous use as an HMO prior to the introduction of the Article 4 Direction by Warwick District Council.
ET Planning were able to gather evidence including tenant contracts and two statutory declarations from the property owners which provided irrefutable evidence that this property had been maintained as an HMO since before the Article 4 Direction was put in place.
The council accepted the evidence provided and determined that the permitted development rights prior to April 2012 were to be honoured.
Thanks to ET Planning, the property now has a Lawful Development Certificate and is now, importantly, safe from enforcement action.
Do you have an HMO property?
It is important to check that your HMO property is lawful either under permitted development rights or by receiving a lawful development certificate from your local authority, otherwise you could be open to enforcement action. If you would like to discuss your HMO property with ET Planning, please contact us and a member of the team would be very happy to help.