Certificate of Lawfulness showing 10 year AOC Breach

Removing agricultural occupancy conditions on dwellings is never a straightforward exercise, as the LPA will always seek to resist the removal of these dwellings from the housing stock available which is specifically and solely aimed at farm and horticultural workers. These cases take significant preparation and will usually involve a ‘two step process’; the first being a certificate of lawfulness and the second being an application to remove the condition. In this case, Bloomfields successfully obtained a Certificate of Lawfulness in respect of a 1970s Agricultural Occupancy Condition (AOC) dwelling in relation to a former nursery before then applying to the LPA to fully remove its AOC. The argument to remove the AOC was based on a number of property specific factors, but predominantly on the basis that the condition no longer served any useful planning purpose and that the dwelling was beyond the affordable reach of the farm worker which the condition required to occupy the dwelling.

Bloomfields provided clear and compelling arguments to the Local Planning Authority sufficient to enable them to firstly approve the Certificate of Lawfulness before then successfully removing the condition in its entirety.

Our client’s property has significantly increased in value as a result of the removal of the condition which also now enables him to sell the dwelling as an unencumbered property at a value approximately 30% more than with the AOC still in place.