Open and shut case of illegal house hidden by garage door
A COUPLE tried to dupe council officials by converting their garage into a tiny house – and hiding it behind a fake door.
Reeta Herzallah, 37, and Hamdi Almasri, 39, flouted planning regulations by secretly creating accommodation for the family’s nanny.
As well as concealing the illegal property with a propped- up garage door, they also used fencing to hide it from the main road.
But the pair – both NHS doctors from Enderby, Leicestershire – were eventually caught by council officials and when they refused to turn the home back into a garage they were taken to court. They have now been fined £770 each and ordered to pay costs of £1,252 by magistrates in Leicester. The pair were convicted in their absence without making a plea.
Officials at Blaby District Council discovered the planning breaches in 2015 after a tip- off. Herzallah and Almasri converted the building despite housing estate conditions insisting all garages should remain permanently available to ease parking problems in the area. They also created an unauthorised access on to a busy dual carriageway without permission. A retrospective planning application submitted by the couple in July 2016 was refused and a later appeal failed. Although they eventually agreed to remove the fencing, inspections by officials in July and August 2017 confirmed the garage had not been restored to its former use. The secret property will now have to be converted back – or be torn down. Councillor Sheila Scott, the cabinet member for planning, said the conversion was ‘completely unacceptable’. In most cases, councils can only take enforcement action against illegal developments or conversions within four years of their completion.