Nadhim Zahawi's family lived in Cotswolds mansion in breach of planning ... trends now
Nadhim Zahawi's family lived in breach of a planning condition on their country mansion for a decade, planning documents show.
The embattled Conservative Party chairman and wife Lana Saib bought the new-build property on the edge of the Cotswolds in 2011.
But when the house was erected on the site of a riding school and former farm seven years earlier, it was built with a 'rural occupancy condition (ROC)' which had been attached to the planning permission - meaning that only agricultural, forestry or equestrian workers could live there.
The Zahawis have now been granted immunity from enforcement action after exceeding a ten year time limit on such breaches under planning legislation.
Nadhim Zahawi is fighting for his political life after he reportedly had to pay £4.8million to the taxman for a 'careless' error
Planning permission rules meant that only agricultural, forestry or equestrian workers were supposed to live at the property
The revelations heap further pressure on Mr Zahawi after it emerged he negotiated a multimillion pound settlement with the taxman while he was chancellor last year, and therefore in charge of HMRC.
Mr Zahawi is fighting for his political life after he reportedly had to pay £4.8million to the taxman for a 'careless' error, including a major penalty over his shareholdings in polling firm YouGov which he co-founded.
Questions surrounding Mr Zahawi's tax affairs were also said to have cost him a knighthood in the recent New Year's Honours list.
Last night, Clive Betts MP, who chairs the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities select committee - which scrutinises local government and planning policy - said the Mail's revelations suggested Mr Zahawi 'thinks he can do what he wants and, in this case, get away with it'.
The ROC stated that occupation of the property was limited 'to a person solely or mainly working, or last working' in local equestrian activities, agriculture or forestry.
Dependents or a widow or widower of such a person would also be allowed to stay at the house, which cost the Zahawis £875,000 and has served as the Stratford-on-Avon MP's constituency home.
The embattled Conservative Party chairman and wife Lana Saib bought a new-build mansion on the edge of the Cotswolds in 2011, which they lived in in breach of a planning conditions
Documents show that the planning clause was inserted because 'planning policies would not support the construction of a new dwelling for unrestricted occupation' in the 'open countryside location', in Warwickshire.
But Stratford-on-Avon District Council, which has been run by the Tories since 2003, failed to take enforcement action against the Zawahis despite refusing a flurry of applications by the couple and their planning agents to amend or remove the clause.
The authority's seeming inertia meant that in December 2021 - ten years after the Zahawi family moved in to the house - Miss Saib's application for a Lawful Development Certificate (LDC) to ratify the breach was permitted.
The application sought to confirm that 'the occupation of Ms Saib and her dependents is lawful'.
An accompanying report stated officers were 'satisfied that, on the balance of probability, (rural occupancy condition) has been breached for a continuous period of ten years or more. The occupation of the dwelling without any restriction of occupation is therefore considered to be lawful.'
Planning experts told the Mail that the Zahawis' L-shaped country home would have been devalued by the ROC when
