TGG Blogs

I recently spoke to someone who had called me to discuss moving some cables on a site they had just purchased.  

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The site was a perfect project for them, was well within their budget, planning permission had been approved for an extension at the side of the property.  The works would take 9-12 months and would be converted into a five bed HMO and two studio flats and make them a good rental income each year.  

 

I asked if they'd had anyone look at the site prior to the purchase to check for utilities onsite.  Looking at this site you wouldn't think there was anything there.  This was an end terraced house with a path no wider than two metres running down the side between another house, which was the path with planning permission to build a two story extension on.  

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The cables running down the side turned out to be 2 x 132Kv in a service tunnel leading to a sub station beyond the back garden.  Looking at the built up area there was no obvious route to divert the cables out of the land, even if there were the cost would have run in to the  hundreds of thousands of pounds.  Unfortunately this project could not proceed in the manner in which they had envisaged as it was just not feasible to either move the cables or build over them. 

 

Utility companies don't have to move their assets, it most cases, in our experience they will, but it really depends on a number of factors, cost being one them, whether the utility company can undertake such work, whether it would be reasonable to do so and whether there is an alternative location or solution.

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This highlights the need to review these plans before a purchase, you would have thought that these cables would have shown up on the deeds, in this case they did but weren't reviewed.  But not all assets require easements, water mains for instance can be laid and maintained in third party land without an easement, so always worth checking.

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We've seen this all too often and can be heart breaking, curtail a project, become extremely stressful and even lose you a lot of money.

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If you are thinking of, or are in the process of buying a property to develop, please do check these things, it may just save you a real headache.