Joe McDermott first approached us and said that he’d seen our house up for sale and asked whether we’d thought about getting planning permission on it.
In fact, the year before we had made some enquiries, but the planning office had told us that permission was unlikely to be granted, and our estate agent said we’d be looking at a minimum cost of £35-40,000 to put an application through. We as a family weren’t willing to gamble that amount of money, so at the time had given up on the idea.
However, Joe was willing to take that risk. He said he would take care of all the hassle of applying for planning permission and cover all the costs, in return for 50% of the uplift in value of our property once permission was granted and the property sold.
We agreed and found working with Joe very smooth and easy. He dealt with everything – the pre-application planning meetings, getting a team of architects to draw up plans, and the whole submission process. He also kept us up-to-date on what was happening throughout.
Joe was successful in getting planning permission for 30 houses on our land and we’re currently in the process of selling it to a developer.
We would never have been able to achieve this ourselves, partly because we didn’t have the experience or contacts to submit a successful application, but also because the cost of preparing it would have been too much for us to risk.
Joe has a great deal of knowledge in this area. He knows how things work and has a good eye for which sites will work and which won’t, and the contacts and experience to make it happen. The whole process has been brilliant.
Ange Barton
I have worked with Joe on a number of projects with very satisfactory results for our clients. Joe has a knack for spotting development opportunities, cutting through the red tape and delivering attractive and profitable schemes.
David Blythman, Managing Director, Scott Fraser