Living in a Caravan on my own land

[patihan]

I have recently sold my house and have taken a touring caravan to a field I own that has been in my family for many years. On the land are farm buildings where I have been storing some furniture etc for many years.
I intend to obtain planning permisson for the farm building to be converted into a house whilst I live in the Caravan.
The council have now advised me to leave the land within 28 days and remove all of my possessions from the buildings.
The buildings are my own and so is the land.
The caravan is out of sight of any other building so cannot cause an eyesore and is also a touring caravan not a static version.
Is there anything I can do to stop or avoid this unfair action. Thanks in advance.

[Ethel]

It's change of use. You are now living on the land without residential permission.

You can apply for it retrospectively, but whether you'll get or not I have no idea.

Get the application in immediately.

[buildersmate]

Unfortunately you need planning permission to live on your own land - you aren't being singled out unfairly, the law applies equally to everyone.

[Buenchico]

There are some grey areas in the law, but 28 days (in any one year) seems to be the maximum time you can legally live in the caravan, on your land, without planning permission. See here:
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Home-and-Garden /Question224524.html

Chris

[Annlinda]

Between houses we lived in a caravan on a friends farm. The council told us to go we told them to s.d off, the hay barn had been set fire to and we were security. It worked and they left us alone. As for using barn for storing furniture ask the council where it says you cant use the barn for storage.
As you may have gathered I have a healthy disregard and dislike of unproductive ,unhelpful and unreasonable jobsworths.
Anyway don't take it lying down ask questions, make a fuss. Look at the travellers, takes the council years to move them off their own land and then often one ore more caravan is allowed
Good luck

[buildersmate]

So you condone the actions of travellers then, Annlinda?
Time to take a hard look at your own ethics, perhaps.

As you may have gathered I have a healthy disregard and dislike of unproductive, unhelpful and unreasonable answers to questions.

[teag1rl]

Yep, the council can tell you to shift and they are right, as said in pevious posts you are not being singled out. Have they just politley told you to leave? If you don't they can issue you with an enforcement notice which will tell you the same thing, but it's prosecutable if you dont. You can appeal against an enforcement notice and you could stay while the appeal was being sorted out which might take a fair time, so would give you some time to play with , but by the sound of it, you dont really have any grounds for appeal and decsion would be the same-shift (but this could be a yr or so down the line)! Also posessions in buildings arent to do with farming, so that's why you're telling them to get rid. Have you had furniture in them in excess of ten years? If so, you could apply to get certificate of lawfulness for the change of use.

[Annlinda]

Didn't think my answer was unreasonable buildersmate. Just the truth .If travellers can get away with living in a caravan on their own land why not joe public? Councils are full of jobsworths who are encouraged to act like tin gods by people who are afraid of asking questions of them. I really see nothing wrong with living in your own caravan on your own land and certainly as this caravan is out of sight the delicate sensibilties of passers-bye it is doing no harm. Just think BM if they get pp maybe there will be a job for you.

[thundercrack]

I spoke to my local council some years ago about having a caravan in my garden and my daughter and husband living in it as a temporary measure. I was told that as long as one meal a day was taken in the house, then there was no objection, but if all meals taken in caravan then planning required .

[teag1rl]

thundercrack is right, you can use caravan as ancillary use to a dwelling, but the caravan must be sited within domestic curtilage of dwelling (ie garden, not field).

[ecoed]

the very best advice is this, tell the council to sod off and if they give you any more grief tell them you'll sell the site to as many 'new age travellers' as you possibly can. Empower yourself, get a grip and stop playing their game. this has worked for me and 100's of other people that stood up to state control. rememember this if you were on first name terms with these people or knew a member of their family there would not be an issue. wake up sieze the day live your life and dont be bullied................ good luck....

[fordf350camp]

I was told if you live on your land for 10yrs have your mail sent there and any bills you have a good chance of staying is this correct

[beavis1]

Hi guys
Been reading through comments-
Having used to work at local authority and all the red tape the guy is right.tell the council to sod off!!
The grey area about land caravanning ect is
1.put your van/caravan in a building i.e barn ect.
NEVER EVER use it outside (the local dog walkers always report it)
2.use your land as part time buisness,marget gardening/turf farming ect
3.use the security route-say about your machinery on site and you are not moving off the land as you need to protect your livelyhood.
4.if council get funny say fine i will get private security firm in and send council bil.
NOW THAT ALWAYS WORKS!!!!
andy ex-council employee

[urbtaf]

I am watching this thread with great interest, as I am about to go bust. my business will support me, but only just, my bank have put my mortgage up to an amount i cant pay. so do I go bust and let the council rehouse me, and sign on the dole. or do I take the bull by the horns, sell the house for whatever I can get to clear my debts keep working, and move into a caravan on a friends field (it has water and a sewer running through it) am I then the scourge of society, or am I a man just trying to survive , as for buldersmate, not a person that seems to know much about life, I think I can sum up as (not in my back yard )
I thank Andy for his straight talking it refreshing to know that some on the councils are human beings after all.
If anybody has any tips on how to survive as an OUTSIDER these will be much appreciated

[lez17]

We too are not able to manage,with the cost of living soaring weekly but the pay pack lessening (due to no extra work in the building trade). We are having our property valued this week and have our eye on some ground with a few outbuildings( we will not have enough to by a property).Our intent is to run a lively hood from there and of course stay in there to look after our buisness and also as we would have no-where else to live with our money being totally invested into the land and buisness.
Untill the buisness builds we will hop on and off the field staying at friends(with the caravan) for every other weekend or such.
If we were removed from the land permantly they would be making us homeless.
This is NOT our dream we have been forced into this situation,we both work hard for our money and are forced to leave our lovely home,I find it hard to believe that the Council can justify then 'putting the boot in futher' and completely shread our lives!!!
We will have no option but to dig our heels in.
This thread has been very informative to us,We will revisit soon. Thank-you

[patihan]

Lez 17: Thanks for your posting, I asked the original question, our matter looks as if its being resolved now. Hopefully!!!!
Regarding your situation, I wish you ALL the luck in the world. People have posted some good info on here, it looks as if your already "up" on some of it. Why still, in 2008 are councils still a pain in the a**! Their public servants, so why do they act like it.... rant over... We were also forced into a position where we had to give up our beautiful family home, BUT... this is a BUT with hindsight only, if we had kept the house, we would had it repossessed in the end, and with falling house prices would have been in a much worse situation if we had tried to stay there... so all things happen for a good reason? maybe in our case it did. From what I've found out about all of this, check this though... get that land, even put chickens on there which are easy to look after etc, get some money back off them too, this is then farming activities and as someone else said, your there to protect it, thats your business. I am certainly no expert or I wouldnt have posted in the first place, but anyway, again, wish you LOTS of luck with everything, things will be hard but being in a repossession situation (which I have experience of) is a soul destroying thing to go through, so you doing what your planning to do is a hard move, but probably a good one. Doing things like this in life opens new doors even if it seems hard at the time. So good luck and post back with your progress :) Cheers Lez17.

PATIHAN

[lez17]

Thank you patihan. It seems like an eternal trauma at the moment but I'm sure that is the same for anyone moving home. I too wish you all the luck with your new home( think a few more will be forced into a similar situation with the present reccesion)

[patihan]

Hi,

Very happy indeed to say planning permission has recently been granted, not without a fight I may add!!! :)

To Lez and family & all people going through or about to go through housing problems, I wish you all very good luck.
As hard as it is to agree with when your going through such a bad time, every cloud really does have a silver lining. Some silver linings take longer to see than others, but they're definately there :) Patihan

[soulfulbriky]

I have just found these links by chance and found them very interesting, I live in a regeneration part of the north east (middlesbrough) I have recently been notified my house is one of a number to be demolished i own mine ,But this means nothing by the time i pay my mortgage off i will be left with little money, I was brought up in this area and have lots of very good memories. when they rebuild the houses they will be too expensive for me to buy. I am a hard working bricklayer with a half decent job,but not in my wildest dreams could i afford a new home so i thought of buying a small patch of land some were having a caravan and applying for planning permission and building a house as i could afford it, very slowly i might add but now even that sounds like a fairytale, so just remember your not alone

[patihan]

Good luck Bricky, if you need anymore help with things, post it back on here, having just gone through the caravan-land-planning permission saga I've learned alot about all of this, so if I can help you out, I certainly will do, good luck again - Patihan

[outsiderplus]

Soulfulbriky and pathian.
This is great, i've just found this site by chance!!
Great Topic,
I've been thinking of doing the same as soulfulbriky, I've been looking for land and caravans for sale in order to finaly move out my parent house. i'm 26years old and since I split with my ex-girlfriend and moved back with the olds my lifes been ***** to be polite!!
It's hard moving back with the parents but didn't have much choice.
It made me realise I'll never be able to afford a mortgage on my own but don't want to settle down with a woman to do so. I want my own place now, so why waste say �150,000 on bricks and mortar when for �50,000 you could buy a mint caravan and some land.
Please advise me! Do you think the chicken farm thing work,great idea if so
Help! I'm to old to be living with my old parents