Britt Jones
A couple have been ordered to demolish a very expensive house after they got mixed up with the law.
Building a home from scratch is a dream everyone may have at one point or another, but it’s one that people are seldom able to act upon.
Not only does it take a lot of time, energy, and vision, but you also need an incredible amount of money.
Plus, there are the legal things you have to leap through to make it happen.
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Anyway, this elderly couple poured their money and lives into building a home like no other, but are now being forced to tear it down because of a little issue with the planning permissions.
Well, it’s not a small issue- it’s quite big.
According to reports, the couple broke planning laws when they built their three-bedroom home instead of a horse breeding clinic.
Jeremy and Elaine Zielinski had only been given planning permission to build a two-storey horse semen collection centre and laboratory, which would include a small flat on the first floor for staff to mooch about in.
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However, they instead built their own home within the 17 acres of land in Great Abingdon, Cambridgeshire.
The couple had originally bought a house with an outbuilding on the large land in 1989 for £100,000. In 2014, they were given planning permission by South Cambridgeshire district council to build a business which would have a reception area, office, kitchenette, laboratory space, changing room and toilet on the ground floor for staff and then two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms on the first floor too.
However, that is not what was built.
Planning inspector Chris Preston claimed it had a ‘decidedly residential appearance’, with homely furnishing, a kitchen island, and more.
After catching wind of this different build, the council stepped in and ordered them to demolish it in 2023.
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While the Zielinskis appealed the order ,and said that they’d convert it to the clinic, a planning inspector denied it after claiming the pair ‘constructed a dwelling from the off’.
However, they deny those claims, sharing that they misunderstood the terms.
Elaine told MailOnline that they didn’t know they’d broken the rules.
The 79-year-old revealed: “We want to carry on living here. It’s a warm and comfortable home. I love it.
“It doesn’t make sense to tear it down. I don’t want to go and live in a caravan. If we are chucked out, we will be having to rely on the state.”
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Explaining that they poured all of their money into the home, they would ‘not have gone on and built this’ unless they thought it would be legal to do so.
Her husband, who is 73 added: “I have not had a decent night’s sleep in years and, from the moment when we got the first visit in 2020 [from council officials], life has been shaky.
“We have lost £1million overnight as a result of this decision. If we could have a semen clinic on the site it would be worth at least £1million.”
The couple sold their house in 2019 and moved into a static home and blamed the tip off on a jealous neighbour.
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If the pair have to tear it down, they’ll be homeless.
Jeremy, the husband said: “If we have broken the rules, we didn’t know the full ramifications.
“We did not get any advice from the planners along the way. The first we knew something was wrong was in 2020.
“There was not much communication. Don’t throw us out on the street.”