[2009] EWHC 634 (Admin), 31 March 2009. The case considers whether a certificate of lawfulness can be delivered when there is a sustained breach of a planning condition but which did not subsist at the date the application was made. Peter Ellis (E) applied to overturn two decisions taken by an inspector in relation to his house. Planning permission was granted for the dwelling in 1961, with the condition that it be occupied only by people employed in agriculture or forestry. The house has been inhabited since then with short periods of inoccupancy and in complete breach of that condition. In a time of inoccupancy, the previous owner applied for a certificate of lawfulness, on the basis that the breach had begun more than 10 years earlier. Chiltern District Council rejected this application and a later application for planning permission which sought to remove the occupancy condition. E appealed against these two rejections. The inspector appointed by the Secretary of State dismissed both appeals. E argued that a certificate of lawfulness should have been granted. "Held": application refused. The inspector had not erred in his application of Nicholson v Secretary of State for the Environment and Maldon District Council case. She had not applied the local plan policy mechanistically. She had expressed that there was no evidence that the area did not need agricultural dwelling and that H had to prove it, what he failed to do. Her reasons were proper.