Property Pre-Purchase Searches re Planning etc

[bruncher]

When a house purchase is agreed, should the searches carried out by the buyer's solicitor be expected to discover plans by an airport to change the incoming flight pattern whereby the change leads to intensive overflying of the property?

There was an official consultation (about changes to flight paths) in the public domain, but it wasn't included in the solicitor's search report. It appears also that the consultation itself was not well-publicised in the locations that would be most affected by the changes. The local authority within which the property is located, was informed about the consultation - should the proposed changes have been put onto the Council's Planning Application portal as a way of alerting anyone who might be researching properties in the area?

Any help much appreciated.

[supremetwo]

There was an official consultation (about changes to flight paths) in the public domain, but it wasn't included in the solicitor's search report. It appears also that the consultation itself was not well-publicised in the locations that would be most affected by the changes. The local authority within which the property is located, was informed about the consultation - should the proposed changes have been put onto the Council's Planning Application portal as a way of alerting anyone who might be researching properties in the area? Any help much appreciated.

I cannot see how if there is no actual planning application.

We are getting leaflets (from the owners) saying how great Heathrow expansion will be for jobs and our local council is opposed to that expansion.

Presume yours is a smaller airport. What is the local council's attitude to the changes?

[Clitheroekid]

The short answer is “No” - the normal local search made by solicitors for a residential property would not deliver this type of information.

However, assuming the vendor had been notified about it there would be an argument to say that they should have mentioned it in the replies to the question on the Property Information Form, and that an omission to do so could give rise to a claim against the vendor.

[Slarti]

The short answer is “No” - the normal local search made by solicitors for a residential property would not deliver this type of information.

However, assuming the vendor had been notified about it there would be an argument to say that they should have mentioned it in the replies to the question on the Property Information Form, and that an omission to do so could give rise to a claim against the vendor.

When it was decided to reorganise many of the flight paths over the East Anglia a few years back, there was no prior consultation with (or notification to) most of those affected, only with those within a couple of miles of the 5 airports involved. So the first those of us who are now under flight paths , but over 10 miles from any airport, knew about it was when it hit the TV news the day before it happened.

When people complained, the authorities told us we wouldn't notice anything. They were wrong. For well over a year I was woken by the 05:00 flights heading for northern airports and had no recourse to anything as flights over a certain altitude are deemed not to be a nuisance. And just under an hour later we start getting the descending flights heading for Stansted, Southend, Heathrow and Gatwick, if the wind is in the wrong direction. For some reason we hardly ever get London City flights over us.

Slarti

[bruncher]

...... assuming the vendor had been notified about it there would be an argument to say that they should have mentioned it in the replies to the question on the Property Information Form, and that an omission to do so could give rise to a claim against the vendor.

If the local authority was notified, would they not have an obligation to make the information discoverable to those whom it might affect?

[Clitheroekid]

...... assuming the vendor had been notified about it there would be an argument to say that they should have mentioned it in the replies to the question on the Property Information Form, and that an omission to do so could give rise to a claim against the vendor.

If the local authority was notified, would they not have an obligation to make the information discoverable to those whom it might affect?

Certainly not in the sense of a legal obligation. If you think about it, it would be an impossible burden for local authorities if they had to record every bit of information they received, consider to whom such information should be passed on and then make arrangements to do so.

A local search carried out by a solicitor only asks a very specific agreed set of questions. It consists of two parts, the first being a search of the Local Land Charges Register. This reveals matters that a local authority is required by law to register against the property. There's a list of them here (and for the avoidance of doubt the Civil Aviation Charges that need to be registered don't relate to the subject raised by the OP) - https://www.ashford.gov.uk/planning-and ... d-charges/

The second part of the form is a list of standard form enquiries. This is the list of enquiries, and you can see that there is again no enquiry about the subject raised by the OP - https://www.geodesys.com/media/85929/CO ... 6-Form.pdf