Pacifico sold a flat as two bedrooms — an unauthorised window cost it £34,000

Pacifico Ltd (formerly Bronte Capital Ltd) converted 15 Hamilton Street in Cardiff into two apartments in 2015 and marketed Apartment 1 as a two-bedroom property. The front second-floor room only worked as a bedroom because of a Velux rooflight that never had planning permission: the building sits in a conservation area covered by an Article 4 Direction that removed permitted-development rights for rooflights. The lease plans labelled the two rooms 'Bed 01' and 'Bed 02', and the estate agent's email called the front room a bedroom.

Eryl Rosser completed the purchase on 8 July 2016 for £299,950. The seller's Law Society Property Information Form (TA6) said the seller was not aware of any breaches of planning permission or works without necessary consents, and that there were no planning issues to resolve. In October 2017 Cardiff Council wrote to say the Velux was unauthorised; retrospective consent would not be granted, and keeping the window risked formal enforcement. Rosser had it removed — which left the room without the ventilation and lighting building regulations require for a bedroom.

She sued. In Rosser v Pacifico Ltd [2023] EWHC 1018 (Ch), Mr Justice Zacaroli held the seller had made an untrue statement of fact on which the buyer relied: there were two bedrooms when in fact there was only one. Pacifico's defences — that calling a room a bedroom did not guarantee lawful use, that the buyer's solicitors should have checked the council planning portal, and that the director honestly relied on his memory and the building-regulations completion certificate — all failed. The buyer's duty to investigate did not excuse the seller, and Rosser recovered £34,142.92.

£34,142.92 in damages for misrepresentation, plus a buyer left with a one-bedroom flat after removing the window.

Pacifico marketed and documented the flat as two bedrooms — lease plans, the agent's email and the TA6 answers — on the strength of a rooflight that never had planning permission.

The director answered the misrepresentation form from memory rather than checking the planning record, and the court treated 'not aware' as implying that the seller had checked.

The room only met bedroom standards while the unlawful window stayed in place, so the layout could never satisfy planning rules and building regulations at the same time.

On a conveyancing form, 'not aware of any breaches' reads as a statement that you checked. Selling a room as a bedroom it could not legally be turns the discount into damages later.

The judgement, Rosser v Pacifico Ltd [2023] EWHC 1018 (Ch), now serves as a leading example on bedroom descriptions and TA6 answers in converted properties: a seller cannot hide behind the buyer's opportunity to check public planning records, and honest belief based on memory is no defence to an untrue statement of fact. UK conveyancing commentators use the case to warn that a second 'bedroom' in a converted flat needs both planning permission and building-regulations compliance before it can be described as a bedroom at all.