The Contradiction Engine · For lawyers · Free

One answer or two?

The situation

You advise Hartley, who owns a Victorian house and wants to replace its old wooden windows with modern plastic ones. The council’s planning officer has told him by email that ‘no planning permission is needed for replacing windows’.

A neighbour has told Hartley that the house is ‘listed’ and that the council’s heritage officer would object. Hartley is confused: ‘The council says yes and a neighbour says no. Which is it?’

The rules

Rule A (Planning Act 2010, s.5). Replacing windows in an existing house does not need planning permission, as long as the new windows are similar in appearance to the old.
Rule B (Heritage Act 2005, s.8). A person must not alter a listed building in any way that affects its special character, whether or not the alteration can be seen from the street, without listed building consent.
Rule C (Heritage Act 2005, s.9). Planning permission and listed building consent are separate. Each is decided under its own test, and having or not needing one does not remove the need for the other.

Your task

Advise Hartley what approvals he needs before replacing the windows.

Everything you need is on this page: no outside law and no tools. All places, statutes and people are fictional (the Republic of Eastmark). More than one answer may be defensible: what matters is that your reasoning follows the rules shown.

Step 1 · What kind of conflict is this?

The conflict disappears once the rules are read together properly.A real conflict that the law tells the decision-maker to resolve by weighing.A real conflict that the law does not resolve: reasonable lawyers could differ.No real conflict: the two rules govern different things.

Professional skills training with fictional material. It is not legal advice and is not accredited by any court, regulator or professional body.