Does anyone have any advice on the new permitted development laws for home extensions?

[pennymorris]

The government's announcement last week regarding relaxing the planning laws for home extensions is all a bit baffling. We are about to start an extension which was cut back by planning. Is it worth holding out to try and get a bigger extension? Does anyone have any idea whether this new legislation will take a week, or months to get through? Should we just take a risk and go ahead and build the bigger extension then apply for permitted development after the event in the hope the rules will allow?

It apparently should be through in October - what were you planning that's been restricted?

A basic kitchen extension to an end of terrace house, but we had to lose a corner off the room, due to some planning restriction on the view from the neighbouring property. The neighbour themselves had no problem with it, just our planning department. It means the room would be an L-shape rather than a square. The said corner is only approx 2m x 1.2m so it doesn't sound like a big deal, but it would make a big difference to us to get this back.

Can you put it off a month and go from there when the guidance has been fully issued and put in place?

Yes, we could. Do you have insider knowledge that it's likely to go through in October? There doesn't seem to be any kind of deadline I've seen and nobody wants to commit to a date.

The governemnt will be consulting on the proposed alterations to the system so I think it unlikely that any revisions will be up and running in October. AFAIK the consultation hasn't even been published yet - they normally run for at least a month and then all the responses need to be considered, new legislation drafted etc. I think there may be some time to go yet. IF the alterations go through anyway - would you like a 6m extension to your neighbours property without planning permission being required (8m for detached houses)?

There is no way it will be October. The government need to produce and put through parliament a revised Statutory Instrument to revise the General Permitted Development Order. There also needs to be a period of consultation before this - my guess is that it will be April 2013, if it comes in.

Whatever you do, don't under any circumstances build it and then apply for permitted development when the new regs come in. Applying for permitted development is formally known as a Certificate of Lawfulness and it is applied on the date the building works took place. If it wasn't permitted development at the time it was built it won't become permitted development in law if the regulations change and the Council can still take enforcement action against you. Even if they choose not to, this could prove problematic when selling your house in the future.

I would advise you do it in this order. Wait for the changes to come in. Apply for a Certificate of Lawfulness. Build it.

Thanks Flosshilde. I think the risk is too stressful to take on. I had thought there was some loophole in the law which applied to extensions gaining permitted development, say, 5 years after they'd been built whether you applied for permission beforehand or not.

You might be thinking of the thing that means that the Council can't take enforcement action after a certain period of time. That doesn't make it permitted development - just makes it impossible for the Council to do anything about it. You would still end up having to get a certificate of lawful development proving that its been up for x years before you could sell, and the onus would be on you to prove it.

Are you sure that they were reasonable in saying that they wouldn't permit what you wanted in the first place? I recently went in with a friend regarding her plans (which the Council said were not acceptable) and we managed to negotiate almost everything that she wanted (and I think will end up with something far superior to what the architect had originally drawn for her that the LPA didn't want to approve).

I'm not convinced the council were being reasonable, as we already had a conservatory taking up the same footprint. We just wanted to replace it with a solid structure and open up the interior but they wouldn't allow that.

Have you got anything in writing you could send to me to look at in terms of their specific comments (PM)