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Don’t Let it Become Personal (Even When it’s Tempting)…

Kelly Lemon, updates on her property portfolio activity

A busy month with plenty of highs and lows and the key lesson this month has been to keep my emotions in check. It is very tempting to have emotional reactions to certain news, bad days, good days etc. However, when investing in property you have to take the highs with the lows and in order to make the journey more manageable the less emotional you can be about it the better.

It was tempting to allow my frustration levels to rise when we lost our second planning decision to turn our C4 HMO into a Sui generis (larger) HMO. We lost the first planning application which wasn’t ideal, although given local opposition not entirely surprising. However, I was surprised when we lost our appeal and decided to submit another application factoring in the planning inspector’s comments. After all, if the inspector tells us what he wants and we can give it to him then surely we will be granted planning.

However, in the past few days I have learned this is not the case and now our only option is to appeal the second refusal and hope the inspector recognises that from a planning stand point there is little to contest. Ironically, the property currently has six tenants living in it and the HMO officer has said we can have up to 13 in the property as there is a sufficient living and amenity standard to accommodate a higher number of tenants. However, it seems licensing and planning are not on the same page; it’s not the first time and I am sure it won’t be the last. 

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