Plan of rural house

Olga1972 wrote:

Hi to all,

Maybe anyone can advise does this  necessary for buying in Hungay that a house  has the exact plan of it?
I liked the house but it seems it's quite old and the plans are lost (maybe never existed). Is this a big problem? Agent says it's not so important.

Thank you for your time.

Yes, it's important.  The land registry holds the ONLY definitive and legally recognised plan.   

Don't believe your real estate agent.  YOUR lawyer (not the agent's) will obtain the plans for you.  Do not use the agent's lawyer or share the lawyer with the seller.

My experience is as follows:

If a building or parts of a building are not on the plans, you may be required to remove parts of it if it was built without permission or it exceeds the built-in area percentage.

This includes outbuildings like sheds.  If an outbuilding or shed is over 10 years old then it's generally accepted that it's there but it does not allow you to break the rules.  But you'll need a declaration from say, the neighbours it's been there for more than 10 years.  If you removed an outbuilding that exceeded the built-in area then you cannot rebuild it.  But you can renovate it if you do not substantially change it.

You have to submit plans to the local government for most building changes and then you'll find out if the plans do not match and  you could be refused permission for your modifications.

Also, you need to make sure the land boundaries are correct (land registry should know).  Do not rely on bits of paper from anywhere else.

Check land use too - might be agricultural use only.

Make sure you have all the utilities you need - gas, water, phone/internet, electricity - running utilities to a property can cost a fortune.

Good advice from Mr. Fluffy.
We signed a legal document last week just so our next door neighbor could legally put in a A/C unit.
He needed the ok from 4 of his closest neighbors.
Some things are very lack here and some things are very strict.

Dear Mr. Fluffy,

Thank you a lot for your opinion (I've read it several times).
Can I just clarify something  what remains indistinct for me.
In fact I was supplied be some kind of a plan, this is  about 7  plots of land (with its numbers)  in the village with external walls of the houses on it.   
The shape of our house doesn't correspond to this plan (I'm talking about living house itself, even not outbildings) and of couse there are no any dimensions on this plan.
So how anyone can value the built-in area percentage, I even can't imagine(
Same regarding  land boundaries - how to check without any figure on the plan?
But for me it is wierd  that there is no any good plan of the house , I mean with every wall inside, every dimension. Is this legal in the end? How can be electrics in the house without any plan?
Yes, the house is from 1950' and they also said this rule regarding 10 years ago - but no paper which can prove it...
Will appreciate a lot your comments.

Olga1972 wrote:

Dear Mr. Fluffy,

Thank you a lot for your opinion (I've read it several times).
Can I just clarify something  what remains indistinct for me.
In fact I was supplied be some kind of a plan, this is  about 7  plots of land (with its numbers)  in the village with external walls of the houses on it.   
The shape of our house doesn't correspond to this plan (I'm talking about living house itself, even not outbildings) and of course there are no any dimensions on this plan.
So how anyone can value the built-in area percentage, I even can't imagine (
Same regarding  land boundaries - how to check without any figure on the plan?
But for me it is wierd  that there is no any good plan of the house , I mean with every wall inside, every dimension. Is this legal in the end? How can be electrics in the house without any plan?
Yes, the house is from 1950' and they also said this rule regarding 10 years ago - but no paper which can prove it...
Will appreciate a lot your comments.

My own house is from the 1970s but it's now completely rebuilt. We only kept the ground floor walls.

Land registry has a property number and everything is on that.   The plans they produce are to scale so you can measure distances from the plans they have.   The amount of land you have is calculated from these plans.

The internal plans of the house aren't really of interest to the planners other than it will be safe - I mean for example, if the house is rebuilt that the structural calculations are correct.   

The electricity is not part of the planning and the electricity company is not that interested except when relocating the meters or doing the connections to the pole or box.   

The gas company is VERY interested and you need an approved plan for that (it can take months) and that means plans inside and outside.  You also need permission for only approved boilers.

If you want to see the proper plans, ask for the plans from the Foldhivatal (land office).   Your lawyer can easily get them.  You'll need the property number.

As Marilyn said, sometimes it seems like anyone can do anything they want and other times they are incredibly tough and strict.  It's just the usual HU muddle.

Dear Mr. Fluffy ,

Thank you again a lot and again some questions from my side.
Gaz company needs an internal \external  plan of the house and this plan should be confirmed by governement?
Or they just needs the  scheme of the  gas system and boilers?
Otherwords if I would like to have a gaz (which is at the moment is only near house) should I start from ordering of the bilding plan from civil architect?

Olga1972 wrote:

Dear Mr. Fluffy ,

Thank you again a lot and again some questions from my side.
Gaz company needs an internal \external  plan of the house and this plan should be confirmed by governement?
Or they just needs the  scheme of the  gas system and boilers?
Otherwords if I would like to have a gaz (which is at the moment is only near house) should I start from ordering of the bilding plan from civil architect?

I strongly suggest you contact an "architect".  I should say not all "architects" are actually architects.  Some of these people are building engineers.  But they can do all the plans and stuff for you and make sure it passes the planning department.

Gas is a completely separate matter to the architect.  Gas regulations are very strict and yes they need the plans (as they want to know where the water and sewage pipes are). 

You need contact with them and you really should contact a gas planner (yes, there are people who are gas planners here).  Before you buy the house make sure you know how much it will cost to bring gas on to the property.  You could find the cost is so crazy expensive it's not worth doing. Water can be  even worse. Since we got involved in house renovations, I'm now of the opinion that unless everything is on site, it's not worth buying a place.   Anyway, you need to tell the gas planner which boiler you will use. 

We have a Bosch boiler that does the heating and supplies on demand hot water and it has a small tank of 40 litres inside it.  We also have "zones" so we can heat different areas in different ways.  Our boiler is very heavy and we had to have a specially strengthened wall built - no-one mentioned that when we started building!

You should also find out about the phone service.  I live in effectively a suburb of Budapest and I cannot even get Telekom here.  The fibre optic cable is 30m away but there's no capacity to supply us cabled from the street cabinet.   We have to get phone and Internet via the cable TV system.  I am not that bothered about it as it works pretty well but we cannot for example, get the very high speeds now on offer by Telekom.

Olga1972 wrote:

The shape of our house doesn't correspond to this plan (I'm talking about living house itself, even not outbildings) and of couse there are no any dimensions on this plan.

Many people here do illegal home additions over time.

If something is not on the plans from the land office, it is probably not an approved part of the house.

How that affects you will vary. And what you want to do. I personally would talk to the land office and try to get those additions on "the map". But you risk also getting told to tear them down. Quite frankly, such additions are badly made (in construction and insulation), and tearing them down is not always a bad idea.

Quite frankly, it is a common mistake to buy property without first looking at the official map of the property from the land office.

klsallee wrote:

Olga1972 wrote:

The shape of our house doesn't correspond to this plan (I'm talking about living house itself, even not outbildings) and of couse there are no any dimensions on this plan.

Many people here do illegal home additions over time.

If something is not on the plans from the land office, it is probably not an approved part of the house.

How that affects you will vary. And what you want to do. I personally would talk to the land office and try to get those additions on "the map". But you risk also getting told to tear them down. Quite frankly, such additions are badly made (in construction and insulation), and tearing them down is not always a bad idea.

Quite frankly, it is a common mistake to buy property without first looking at the official map of the property from the land office.

Yes, exactly.   

We kept the walls but looking back on it, we should have razed the whole lot and rebuilt it with a full cellar and a garage.  Easier to apply for that than keep other peoples' bodging.

It's also worth getting the land registry entries on who owns it and if there are any liens too.   Important to establish the actual owner(s) is (are) authorising the sale and if there any debts.

People from countries without the ground book ("Torrens" or similar) system don't know the land registry entries are definitive.   This is the only record that matters legally.

In the other threads this is what my ongoing land dispute is about - the plan shows we're missing a 35 m2 triangle due to the fence being in the wrong place.   For those interested, can you believe the neighbour is still arguing about it and now wants the original shape restored?  That's even after we have the decree in our favour and the surveyor is coming next month to put in the boundary pegs.   We've also discovered the owner has got dementia - not joking - really has.  Not sure if it's got any bearing but it probably will do over time.

Dear klsallee,

Thank you  and yes, you're totally correct, it was the addition to the house which was built later. But there is the bathroom now (and boiler), so I wouldn't like to start from tearing it down.
Did you mean that in some cases no exists any way to make such an additions legal?
Which reason should be for this?

Dear Mr. Fluffy,

Yes I've read your thread about your dispute and I am glad to have the opportunity to congratulate you with the decision. You've come such a long way , showed persistence  and in the end you won !
The thing I really can't understand is how you've discovered this issue from the land plan?  Did you hire some expert to check or you discovered it by yourself?
The plan I have for me seems useless(
No any binding to the terrain - mayby all neighbours have shifted in fact(

Well, I'm rather perplexed after all(

Olga1972 wrote:

Thank you  and yes, you're totally correct, it was the addition to the house which was built later. But there is the bathroom now (and boiler), so I wouldn't like to start from tearing it down.
Did you mean that in some cases no exists any way to make such an additions legal?
Which reason should be for this?

An unapproved bathroom can be very difficult to make legal. You would need to hire an expert to come and review the installation. That includes any sewage or septic connection you have. Plumbing requires some skill and knowledge to get it right. Many home made projects lack the proper skills to get it right. Sewage connections are also sometimes taxed based on the number of bathrooms on the property. So it may also be a property tax issue. But that varies by village/town/city -- so I do not know if it applies to you or not.

Not impossible. But to make it all "legal", may be a royal pain. Or if you "know a guy" it might be rather easy. Knowing a guy may make the legal process easier (cough -- go away), but in a few years, due to lousy, ignorant, illegal construction, you might have an indoor flood where your bathroom is. So you decide.

Olga1972 wrote:

Dear Mr. Fluffy,

Yes I've read your thread about your dispute and I am glad to have the opportunity to congratulate you with the decision. You've come such a long way , showed persistence  and in the end you won !
The thing I really can't understand is how you've discovered this issue from the land plan?  Did you hire some expert to check or you discovered it by yourself?
The plan I have for me seems useless(
No any binding to the terrain - mayby all neighbours have shifted in fact(

Well, I'm rather perplexed after all(

Actually it was discovered by the "architect" who noticed the land registry boundary didn't match the situation on the ground.   We didn't actually know and we didn't think to ask.  Now I would say, always ask.  Get the land registry plan - it's the only one that counts.  If in doubt, get a surveyor to check the boundaries.

Winning legally is one thing but trying to keep the really difficult (dementia) neighbour happy while taking back our property has proved more of a problem.    There's a great deal of ignorance around - they keep telling us to talk to their friend who is a lawyer who will obviously give their version and this would not  be relevant to the land registry decree.  If they want to challenge it they need to go to court now.   In the meantime, we're getting our surveyor around to mark the boundary. 

This morning I was trying to find how I can put up a temporary fence.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Winning legally is one thing but trying to keep the really difficult

Yep. People here, from my experience, do not accept court decisions if it goes against them. Only their opinions are right. And their opinion is the only correct "reality". Always. Even if they are not clinically demented.

fluffy2560 wrote:

This morning I was trying to find how I can put up a temporary fence.

Install a green fence. Get some potted bushes (even lavender or rose plants (better because thorns are deterrents) will do .. but the bigger the better) and stick them in the ground along the property line. I have weirdly found that people will tear down wood barriers, but leave plants alone.

Dear klsally,

Yes, I realized now the scale of the problem.
Maybe  you have any idea how much could cost to make legal  such  unapprouved bathroom ? Roughly speaking...

fluffy2560 wrote:

There's a great deal of ignorance around - they keep telling us to talk to their friend who is a lawyer who will obviously give their version and this would not  be relevant to the land registry decree.  If they want to challenge it they need to go to court now.   In the meantime, we're getting our surveyor around to mark the boundary. 
.

I think they may be hard to beleive that newbies foreigners could be right in their village affaires..
And it's really strange in the fact)
Hope the green fence can help.

Olga1972 wrote:

Mayby  you have any idea how much could cost to make legal  such  unapprouved bathroom ? Roughly speaking...

I have no idea. That is like asking me how much it would cost to fill in a hole. I would have to come and see how large the hole is. Big difference in cost between a shovel sized hole and a hectare sized hole.

That is, one site and local info matters.

What you need to do is contact the nearest local government building office (if your house is in a small village, that office will be in the nearest largest town). There will be there an office and a person you can talk to who can give you references to local experts who can come out, on site, and see what are the conditions and give you an estimate of cost.

Hope this helps.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

Winning legally is one thing but trying to keep the really difficult

Yep. People here, from my experience, do not accept court decisions if it goes against them. Only their opinions are right. And their opinion is the only correct "reality". Always. Even if they are not clinically demented.

Yes, indeed, that's the situation.   They think they can argue their way out of it with me whereas I'm prepared to fight to the "death" to defend my boundaries.   The dementia guy always tries a little dig at us as well.  He parks his car in the street and puts the front where our disputed land is so as to say, "this is where I assert my rights end" (i.e. on our land).  It's his way of asserting his (false) land "rights".  Well, he's going to get a surprise because the fence will be removed and there will be a digger there and his car will need to be move further up the road otherwise it could get damaged by workers.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

This morning I was trying to find how I can put up a temporary fence.

Install a green fence. Get some potted bushes (even lavender or rose plants (better because thorns are deterrents) will do .. but the bigger the better) and stick them in the ground along the property line. I have weirdly found that people will tear down wood barriers, but leave plants alone.

Hmmm...that's a really good idea.  I'm going to discuss that option immediately with Mrs Fluffy.  I'll have to put some wire netting along it as the doggies will try and cross the boundary.

Olga1972 wrote:

Dear klsalle

Yes, I realized now the scale of the problem.
Maybe  you have any idea how much could cost to make legal  such  unapproved bathroom ? Roughly speaking...

I can throw in an opinion. 

If the bathroom is good enough to use, then just leave it and have your architect draw up the plans for all the changes and submit that for planning approval. 

When they get approved, the new bathroom will become approved at the same time and nothing  special need be done since everything will be replaced (presumably).   

Mostly the planning people don't care what you have inside as that's decoration.

fluffy2560 wrote:

I can throw in an opinion.

Yes. That is one option. Basically along the "knowing a guy" route.

klsallee wrote:

fluffy2560 wrote:

I can throw in an opinion.

Yes. That is one option. Basically along the "knowing a guy" route.

Igen Igen Igen and exactly.   No point in seeking approvals when it's all going to be totally revamped.   There's no way the planning folks will come around if the house has been there 30-40-50 etc years already.

fluffy2560 wrote:

He parks his car in the street and puts the front where our disputed land is so as to say, "this is where I assert my rights end" (i.e. on our land).  It's his way of asserting his (false) land "rights".  Well, he's going to get a surprise because the fence will be removed and there will be a digger there and his car will need to be move further up the road otherwise it could get damaged by workers.

Our first land dispute, many years ago, my wife was checking what others experienced in Hungary, and came across a forum where a person was saying they wanted to build a fence on their marked property line, but the neighbors, on purpose, parked cars on the property line to prevent the fence being built. There was a large and almost unanimous outpouring of support in the comments for....

the neighbor parking the cars....

Learned a lot about Hungarian property psychology from that.

Actually, check your law. Because the last time I checked, and this was some years ago, so things may have changed, but when I was dealing with such things, even if the person's car may be illegally parked on my land....  few will move it for me. Fearful they will be sued by the car owner. The old "you don't have the right to take the law into your own hands" issue in Hungary. You may have to get another court order to get him to move the car. Only then maybe... maybe you can get someone to tow it. I have even found the police are not going to move the car or order it moved without a court order.

Meanwhile.... in the USA... someone's car on my land, I first ask owner to move it and if they do not, I can ask the city to remove it and they will. I can hire a tow truck to cart it away, and they will, or I can tip it over off my property and nobody can do diddle to me legally. My land. The other person was warned. Tough.

Does not quite work the same here. Different set of laws and rights.

klsallee wrote:

....
Our first land dispute, many years ago, my wife was checking what others experienced in Hungary, and came across a forum where a person was saying they wanted to build a fence on their marked property line, but the neighbors, on purpose, parked cars on the property line to prevent the fence being built. There was a large and almost unanimous outpouring of support in the comments for....

the neighbor parking the cars....

Learned a lot about Hungarian property psychology from that.

Actually, check your law. Because the last time I checked, and this was some years ago, so things may have changed, but when I was dealing with such things, even if the person's car may be illegally parked on my land....  few will move it for me. Fearful they will be sued by the car owner. The old "you don't have the right to take the law into your own hands" issue in Hungary. You may have to get another court order to get him to move the car. Only then maybe... maybe you can get someone to tow it. I have even found the police are not going to move the car or order it moved without a court order.

Meanwhile.... in the USA... someone's car on my land, I first ask owner to move it and if they do not, I can ask the city to remove it and they will. I can hire a tow truck to cart it away, and they will, or I can tip it over off my property and nobody can do diddle to me legally. My land. The other person was warned. Tough.

Does not quite work the same here. Different set of laws and rights.

Good advice.

I think Dementia-Man (DM) will realise his car could be damaged if he doesn't move it.  He'll have to move it eventually as they'll be dumping materials inside our front garden and blocking our access isn't going to work in his favour - it'd be like parking in front of our driveway.   

In any case, we'll build our fence inside our land up until his former fence, then we'll sort out where his car should go.  He has a kind of fence posts I can "roll back" so I'll just wait until he's gone out, then roll it up until it's back on to his side of the line.     

The DIL of DM is cooperating with us so when the pegs go in, maybe this will be enough to persuade him to move his vehicle to avoid unnecessary aggravation.   

Mrs Fluffy isn't keen on the bushes so we're looking at perhaps 30-35 fence posts banged in the ground with wire-netting as a temporary measure.  I've been looking at jofogas.hu to see if I can get something cheapish that I can roll up as work progresses.  I need about 30m-35m of it.