Not aware that our house built in 2003 was listed

[nnh]

My husband and I bought a second property to let out in 2005. The property was built in 2003, and we knew it was in a conservation area. We recently put it on the market for sale, and it was sold. However, the buyer's lawyer conducted a search and discovered that the building is listed — something we were completely unaware of. The buyer has since withdrawn from the purchase, leaving us in suspense.


We reviewed all our correspondence from the purchase of the property, and neither our solicitor nor the estate agent informed us that it was a listed building. Over the years, we have not made any structural changes, apart from recently installing a back door.


What can we do about the solicitors? Fortunately, we are using the same firm for the sale of the property.

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[Kearn]

Highly unlikely with that build date, unless the architect was someone of incredible note! Sounds like an error.

Check HE for a definitive view. Don’t trust an agent, or a solicitor for that matter. They make many errors in this space.

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There are also errors in the list, we looked at a project claiming to be listed by HE, agent adamant it wasn’t, turned out that the wrong property name and location had been added to the list and it was actually a different building, based on imagery and description, so the list entry was updated.

 

[Itchinfilth]

Sounds a bit of a simple question but have you checked the Historic England website to double check that it's listed? It would have to be a remarkably significant building to have been listed in such a short time.

 

[nnh]

Yes we did. As to our surprise the building was shown as listed. But the description of the house is totally wrong. So we are writing to HE to clarify.

 

[nnh]

I think the the old building was torn down and several houses were rebuilt in 2003. Then they changed the listing to the group of houses as listed but the description of the house is totally out.

 

[Kearn]

I think the the old building was torn down and several houses were rebuilt in 2003. Then they changed the listing to the group of houses as listed but the description of the house is totally out.

You can submit an error online and they were reasonably quick to respond to me when I queried.

Sounds like a lazy clerical oversight. Unless of course the building is curtilege listed, but unlikely a building would have got permission to be built in those conditions…

 

[nnh]

They had proper planning permission to build but the house was never stated as listed on any of our purchase documents. We have now written to the HE and wait and see what they say. thank yuo for your reply.