Extending on a new build?

[Busybubbles]

Hi everyone

We’ve recently bought a property that we love. Location is great, detached, bedrooms are great. The downside is that the downstairs is smaller than we’d like. In an ideal world I’d love to extend and make it into my dream home.

The estate consists of 6 new build houses. We are in the middle and ours is the smallest. The others jut out an extra 3m x 3.6.

Ideally I would like to extend ours so it will be 6.5 x 3.6. So it would match the others extra bit but also have an additional part to square it off.

The issue is that we’re not able to extend under permitted development unless we apply to the council for planning permission.

No one within the new build of houses (6 of them) has applied for an extension. Has anyone come across this problem and if they’ve been able to extend? The reason why the restriction is in place is to ensure that the houses keep in line with current character of the road.

I understand that permitted development rights are frequently waived for new builds so curious to hear if people have been successful with their extensions.

Thanks in advance!

How new are they? I live in a new build property and there are restrictive covenants in place preventing any extensions. Mind you, my back garden is too tiny for that anyway!

@chitchatchatter

How new are they? I live in a new build property and there are restrictive covenants in place preventing any extensions. Mind you, my back garden is too tiny for that anyway!

They are 6 years old. We have a restriction that says we can’t convert the garage either

Yes, the same with garages here too though people have gone ahead with converting them as it’s not obvious they’ve had the work done. And then they complain about the lack of parking on the estate, which was tight to begin with 🤷‍♀️

I think there may be two things here, if I understand you correctly.

The first thing is restrictive covenants imposed by the developers/building company, often to keep the area looking ‘naice’ whilst they’re still selling properties. IME they tend to lose interest once building has stopped or after five years (this time span may vary, check your deeds).

Council planning permission is a different thing and they may well have different criteria such as ensuring new building work blends into the existing landscape.

Just to clarify, it’s a big estate so if everyone converted their garages it would have a huge impact, it’s less of an issue in a development the size of the one you live in.

Thanks for the insight! Only way to tell will be by contacting the council with an application and seeing how it goes. I think the garage thing is less of an issue as you say given that it’s a smaller set of new builds. The extension however will be interesting to see how it swings!

Good luck, I hope it all works out for you!