Lawful development certificate/planning permission

[pinksupergirl]

Hi
We are planning to get an extension on our house and the council have confirmed that we don't need planning permission, however, they have said that if we pay £75, fill out a form and send off scaled drawings for the proposed extension then they can give us a certificate which is a legal document which says we don't need planning permission. Currently we just have a letter which states we don't need planning permission. The council told me its optional but is useful if we ever move in case the solicitors ask for it. Has anyone else had this? We don't know whether its worth getting the certificate when its optional anyway and we are not planning on moving for several years (the extension is instead of moving). It seems a bit like an excuse for the council to get £75 out of us and will delay the building work by a couple of weeks as it takes up to 8 weeks to get the certificate. Are we just being lazy not getting it or do you think we don't really need to bother anyway?
Any help greatly appreciated.

i;d shell out if only to potentially save yourself hastle if you sell.

I don't have any experience in this but when we had our loft done, we were told we did not need planning permission.

Now that our house is on the market and we have exchanged today. Whilst going thru the sold subject to contract process, our solicitor asked us for a copy of the Lawful development certificate and thankfully looking into our loft file, we did not have a copy but was told a copy was issued so I had to phone the loft company and they printed the actual certificate off for us. I didn't even know that we had to get one. Our loft was done 7 years ago.

Reading thru the documents, we were advised to get one as if we didn't and find out at a later date that we needed one, it may delay the building of the loft. Thank God we took that advice for the sake of selling this house.

But then again, my husband is a building surveyor and he dealt with all the loft paperwork so not sure if he knew we needed one.

I would ask him but he is asleep as he gets up really early for work.

I really wouldn't bother - the letter will be fine.

Would you be able to get it retrospectively if needed? I don't think I'd bother either way. It might get flagged up during sale, but then you just respond that pp wasn't needed, and here is a letter that states it.

shhhh - if you can prove the works were done over 4 years previously to you selling the property the certificate wont matter in any case. So keep some receipts ot dated photos etc. Instead.

oh sorry, i misread your initial post. our council dont actually even issue letters saying you dont need planning permission anymore. but if you have a letter saying that then i think paying the 75 isnt worth it.

I have to say that when we sold our house, we would have been delighted to have paid £75 to shut the buyers up about this! Wouldn't have held up building works for it, though.

We have paid for the certificate. In our borough, its pretty much unheard of not to - it does make selling a lot trickier, plus if you ever have any hassles related to the building (neighbours, eg) it helps to have the certificate.

Sorry

Planning is one of the few areas of law where the Council can send you a letter saying everything is fine but could change their mind later and still be able to enforcement action.

No enforcement action can be taken if you have a certificate of lawfulness as it is a formal decision that you don't need planning permission. At the end of the day a letter is only an opinion.

In relation to the 4 year rule, it may be the case that works over 4 years old are immune from action but that won't stop solicitors making life difficult if you want to sell your property later. Bear in mind that if the planning department have advised you to apply for a certificate and you choose not to now, you might have to ask them to confirm that the works didn't need permission later when you don't have the luxury of time on your side (i.e. a sale might be dependant on it at the last minute) and they might not have the resources to deal with the request at the speed you would like them to.

The cost of a certificate before you carry out the work is also half the price than once you've had it carried out.

Ultimately it depends on how bothered you are about getting a formal piece of paper that no one can dispute later on.

We're selling our house and are in the latter stages and this very question came up. We had a loft conversion back in 2003 and had no idea if we had the certificate or not but did eventually find it. You must make sure you get one and keep it safe - even if you don't think you'll ever sell up, you may do later.