Planning, what planning

Jean asked recently how our planning violation was progressing, though progressing  is optimistic. Here’s where we are two years after receiving notification that there is a violation, not saying what the violation is but that we owe more than 3,000 euros in overdue fees and interest for the last 40 years, we’ve owned the house for 20.

It seems that in 1976 a developer was granted a licence to build a semi detached property on what is now our and our neighbours’ plots.  However 2 large separate villas were built and the plot divided into 2, ours is the larger.   A few years later the first owner of our house added a large room with terrace over and in 1985 during a planning amnesty applied for permission for this.  He actually told a few fibs on his application, got so far with the process then stopped and later sold the house to our vendor.  When we bought we were told there were outstanding matters that would be resolved before we bought and we were told they had been before we signed the contract. We were lied to.

Our Comune have been useless mainly swerving our many questions by saying they have passed the matter to another government agency.  This agency has neither responded to nor even acknowledged our many emails which is galling as the interest continues to mount, I guess it’s an easy way for them to make money.  

We have tried to get the local geometra (surveyor) to act for us. He knows the house and our comune well and has been involved in the last 2 sales. He has done nothing except procrastinate, firstly stalling on giving us a price for his work then after a meeting where we said he should proceed anyway saying he cannot get a meeting at the regional office to look at our file.  MrFF checked on line and appointments were available the next day, that was a year ago. 

Towards the end of last year we appointed a firm of Italian solicitors with offices in Rome and Puglia, English speaking staff and property experience, not cheap as you can imagine.  Firstly for 1,220 euros they contacted our village surveyor for a report on the current problems and a plan of action.  For that price they would also write to the geometra we employed when we bought the house who was supposed to check everything was legal and also our vendor who signed the contract stating that it was, they are both in default.  However the solicitor advised us that the local geometra’s report, which he produced surprisingly quickly, was not adequate and we should employ a trusted geometra that they knew for a more comprehensive report, this would cost 2,420 euros.  

So we went ahead with a second report, this geometra looked at the property, possibly visited our Comune and produced a report that didn’t tell us anything more than we already know except to give an estimate of the work to regularise our situation of approximately 30,000 euros plus 22% tax and local authority submission fees not quantified.  This was shocking, a huge amount of money to invest in a property that has now lost much of its appeal. 

We wrote back to the solicitor because geometra 2 had not addressed some points that were listed in our contract with him and had failed to identify other important facts that Mr FF subsequently brought to light. For that reason we only paid half his fee. The default radio silence ensured and we have not had any response for several weeks.

Meantime MrFF did a lot of research himself spending hours online searching and translating.  We were still not convinced our property has any sort of planning approval at all.  However the authorities have up to date plans and we pay Comune charges and taxes on what exists, they have always been aware of what was actually built and taken no action for over 40 years.

Apart from providing plans for the original approved property and for the current house, we need to submit structural, hydrogeological and landscape reports. We also have to apply to have the rural grazing rights removed from our land.  I don’t mind that animals can enter our orchard, we have had horses, cows and sheep in the past, they cannot get into the ornamental areas, do no harm and I enjoy seeing them.   It’s a requirement of the Comune that this is removed, if they are so keen why don’t they do it themselves, oh yes because they can get us to do all the work and pay the submissions fees.

MrFF managed to find Alberto the (so far) nice geologist who was here a couple of weeks ago. His report including penetration and seismic tests is almost done and he will submit this on our behalf.  He also recommended a geometra he works with who we have now appointed to prepare and submit two further reports. 

This seems slightly more positive though we have no idea if we will receive approval. We are both 77 this year, we don’t know how much longer we will want or be able to keep maintaining such a large house and garden, we cannot sell it without putting things in order though we probably cannot sell it anyway in a village that has so many empty houses. 

We definitely feel we have been singled out because we are not Italian.  MrFF spoke to several local people, most of whom have had similar if more minor problems, many not that clear exactly what their problems were. No one else was passed to the agency that never responds and locals have been able to negotiate with the Comune to get sorted, I am not saying deals were done but I am thinking that. It’s a horrible mess not of our making..   Of course the Comune have the right to demolish our property and charge us for doing so if things don’t get regularised but given the speed they work at we won’t be around to see that.  We might just change our wills to pass this headache to someone who really deserves it.