Wandsworth couple fear losing dream home after council says ceiling is 20cm too high
A London couple fear they will be forced to tear down their first home together after being told their ceiling is 20cm too high.
Business consultant Tim Snell and his partner bought their £525,000 one-bedroom flat in January 2017 after developers extended the loft space in 2016.
They moved into their “dream home” two months later after spending their life savings buying and decorating the loft conversion in south-west London.
But now Wandsworth council has told them the work to renovate the loft before they moved in breached a 2016 planning application.
Planning chiefs wrote to Mr Snell in May last year claiming the ceiling was “unlawfully” raised by an extra 20cm over agreed specifications.
Mr Snell, 41, said he and his partner, who did not want to be named, were not involved in the renovation at the Victorian terraced house and knew nothing of the alleged breach until they were contacted by the council.
“We were devastated,” he said. “We couldn’t understand how this could happen. When we found the flat we thought it was perfect.”
Wandsworth’s planning committee will now decide on Wednesday if retrospective permission will be granted to keep their flat as it is.
If not, the pair say they could be forced to “destroy” the flat in Denton Street and lower the ceiling to a height that would make it “unlivable”.
Mr Snell told the Standard: “We had just moved to what should’ve been a new chapter of our lives and found ourselves in a nightmare...the worst case scenario is the flat has to be demolished because under the regulations, you can’t live in it if the roof comes below the doorways.”
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Fire safety rules say all routes leading to exits should have clear headroom of no less than 1.9 metres.
Mr Snell said losing 20cm would mean the roof will come down below the doorway and windows, “and we couldn’t invite any friends who are more than 6ft to our flat”.
Developer John Banbury, who oversaw the renovation, said he had assumed the building work complied with the original application.
A spokesman for Wandsworth council said the roof extension in Denton Street was “unlawfully constructed” and breached the terms of the application.