Pre 63 Property

Not sure if I'm posting in the right forum but here goes.

If one owns a pre63 property and renovates/lives in it, it loses its Pre 63 status. Are there any circumstances where this is not the case.

A friend of mine did this. At the time he had the house re-wired etc. but kept each floor (3) seperate as he intended to rent out the middle and top floor. His circumstances changed and he has lived in the house as his family home for 10 years. He's now thinking of selling ...can he still advertise the property as Pre 63. I have no idea what being Pre 63 means but I presume it was the forerunner of Section 23?? I'm curious because my own house also had Pre 63 status.

Pre-1963 means prior to the passing of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act in 1963, this is the forerunner of building control legislation as we know it today. One of the factors of Pre-1963 properties, AFAIK, is that it was easier to split single residences into multiple apartments / spearate units - this is more difficult to do now under current legislation.

Thanks for that Quinno. Would make sense in my case, the house was split up into 1960s type flats when we bought it. I suppose it would have been useful to keep it, might make my friend's property more attractive to builders as his is a city centre property. Is pre63 defunct now altogether?

In simpler terms:
The requirement of Planning Permission was only brought in in '63. Therefore anything that you built before '63, did not require Planning, and so you don't have to worry about it. If the unit was split into multiple units before '63, then that was ok, if the unit was split into multiple units after '63, then it should have had Planning.

Building Regulations came in much later, initially as guidelines and then compulsorily in '92, I think, as a result of the Stardust tragedy.

I don't understand what you mean when you say "lose pre '63 status". "Pre '63 status" means no problem with the Planning Permission. Unless the renovations in and of themselves require Planning Permission (as material alterations or change of use not subject to an exemption), how would you lose "pre '63 status"?

Edit: oops - crossed.

Thanks Superman, my friend seems to think that if he still had Pre63 status then he would be able to sell it off as 3 apartments without the hassle of planning. I don't know enough about it even though ours was Pre63, we converted it to a family home.

I don't know how you lose Pre63 status either!!

You might have to apply for planning retention, this is applied for retro-spectively if a building is converted with out planning permission. In this case, it might lose it's pre-1963 status. To have this verified, probably better to seek advice of a prefessional surveyor / architect.

Thanks Quinno. Think you may have misunderstood my post though. My fault I'm sure as I'm not making myself very clear! Apparently, if a house had Pre63 status you could basically do whatever you wanted with it, without planning permission. This apparently is still the case and there are some out there for sale.

If, however, one changed it back to a family home then the above is negated.