A long-running legal dispute in England apparently hasn’t worked out in favor of a homeowner who lived in a house disguised as a hay barn in order to evade local planning laws.

He got a permit to build a barn in an area restricted to agricultural use, then built the windowless, three-bedroom structure in Hertfordshire in 2001 (parking farm equipment in front of it), and moved his family in. Later, he applied for a “certificate of lawfulness” to make it a legal abode after a statute of limitations related to land-planning violations had expired.

A legal fight ensued, and recently a court ruled against him: he might have to tear down the barn/house.

The judge commented that the home/barn owner’s efforts to deceive were so extensive that it deserved its own category in planning law, according to the Daily Telegraph of London.

Got an item you’d like us to consider for the Real Estate Roundabout? Send us an email.