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[expatinuk]

I posted this in the money forum but didn't get much response. Prob'ly coz it's hard to give an answer unless you know about the UK... so here goes:

We are in a situation where we have a chance to buy a third of an acre for about $50,000. This is with NO PLANNING permission. There's NEVER been a planning application made on the land. However, in 2005 someone bought it for $42,000. He never put in a planning application because he was told ... unofficially... that it would not be granted. The council did not want to destroy the 'nature' of the rural village.

He is now interested in selling the land to us.

The national government in the UK is putting pressure on local councils to allow sympathetic building in rural and semi rural areas.

Should we take the chance.... buy the property? We'd love to build a house. The style we want would fit in quite well with the houses in the village (some are thatched roofed). We want an oak framed (think Tudor style) using reclaimed roofing tiles and brick.

So... would YOU chance spending $50,000 in hopes that you could get planning permission? We are in the situation where we can wait several years for the council to start to address the pressure from the national government concerning new builds in 'green belt' areas.

[science_expat]

I wouldn't buy anything right now with property/land at peak prices and very likely to come down.

[theakston]

Sounds like a real gamble. Is $50 000 in line with local land values? How much would such a property be worth if it did get built? What would land with planning permission cost? I think the question of whether land values will drop depends upon where you are in the country. The media always seems to talk about 'house prices in the UK', when they actually mean 'house prices in the south east.' Might be worth a go if you really can afford to wait and then not get permission (and spend additional money and a lot of time going back and forth trying to persuade the planning authorities).

[scotia]

I guess the big question is 'can you afford to lose most of the money if planning permission is not granted?'. My guess is that most of the value of the land is currently based on the x% chance of permission being granted (x being unknown). If permission is not granted the value of the land will plummet and you will be out of pocket. If permission is granted then you should be laughing. In this situation I would only consider investing money that I could afford to be without in the future.

The difficulty with planning is that rules come and rules go pretty much as governments and even councils come and go. I have a fundamental distrust of politicians and would not trust them with my money.