David Lock

We are selling our detached property to which I added a conservatory to the back in 2003.

I have now been asked if it had planning permission which it didn't. So are there any planning gurus who can cheer me up and tell me it wasn't needed then?

House is circa 2000 m2 and conservatory is 5 x 4m. On back wall over sliding patio door to rear of property in enclosed garden area which is quite private and not overlooked. It is exactly the same as my neighbour's conservatory. The conservatory is not connected to central heating system.

If it was needed what do I do now?

Cheers, David

Steve vRS

A good site this.

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/per...onservatories/

Steve

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

I think you maybe OK. From what I remember you can't build on more than 50% of the undeveloped land your house is on (i.e. before any extensions were added etc.) or more than 50% of the size of your house, the conservatory must be no deeper than 4m, no higher than 4m and the it must retain a proper door between it and the house e.g. patio door. If it faces any road or public pathway then permission is required if the distance to said road is less than 20m. You cannot build closer than 2m to any boundary without permission and the structure must be majority glazed.

Jamo

iTrader: (23)

my parents did the same, in the same year and my dad worked high up in local government at the time and he never got permission. I think you should be ok.

Geezer

We have had two conservatories done (obviously not on the same property!) and you do not need planning permission. You may need it to confirm to building regs under certain conditions (like not having it seperated by proper doors or having you central heating system connected up), but other then that, no problems.

If it's huge you do, I can't remember the exact size, but bizarrely it's volume as I remember, not area. With the size you have said there, I think there is no issue whatever.

Geezer

David Lock

Thanks a lot guys. I think it may be a bit deeper than the 4m allowed. Ummmmmm?

david

Wurzel

iTrader: (1)

**** me and I thought my house was big at 100 m2 but 2000 m2 is one farkin massive house!

David Lock

Senior moment - I was mixing up m2 and ft2

Just a standard 4 bed gaff.

david

pacenote

If your house is not in a conservation area you should be ok.. check out guide here.

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/per...ries/miniguide

David Lock

Thanks but have checked this out (see post 2 above) and conservatory exceeds the 4m deep allowance

david

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

How much does it exceed it by?

David Lock

Max is 4m and mine is about 4.9m. Not much but over the limit. Complies in all other ways. David

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

If it complies all other ways I wouldn't worry about it, just say you don't have planning permission as it didn't need it. If it gets picked up in the sale I will eat my hat. It's not like it is twice the size or anything.

If you go for retrospective pp it will take weeks longer and could open a whole can of worms and in the extremely unlikely event it does get picked up this is what you will have to do anyway so you would be no worse off.

David Lock

Yeah thanks. My thinking too. Fingers crossed. I must have a short tape measure

There is a supplemenary question which is "were the regulations any different in 2003?"

David

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

I am 99% certain the same regulations were in place in 2003 as today for conservatories, but you may need to check that. A building surveyor would know as obviously calling the planning dept at your local council may not be the best option

austinwrx

I thought rules for extensions and conservatories had been relaxed due to the hsg market to enable people to stay at home and adapt/extend etc.

i.e just building an extension now (at work for a customer) and we didn't need to bother with planning. although we did, just to do it right and tick boxes off.

SpecDscooby

^^^ they were consertatories dont need planning as long as they done cover a certain amount of the square ootage of the garden....certainly anything under 3m X 3m is ok without planning. I would go on your council web site. It WILL be on there....

PaulC72

DL you can always offer to pay for a indemnity to cover them if it all goes wrong with it, your solicitor should be able to advise over this and it shouldn't be too much around £150- 200 we had to provide one for a section of land that was ours but the copy of the landregistry said wasn't (however stupidly if it wasn't access to the house would have been mildly amusing).

If they don't accept the didn't get planning but had no problems with it answer try the other ( but find the correct figure first lol ;-) )

David Lock

Paul - that sounds a very good plan, cheers I remember now doing something like this for another house we sold where some legal bod had missed the fact that the house driveway actually went over a verge which belonged to someone who owned the property years ago. I even moaned to the solicitor that had checked things out - guess what, he didn't want to know!! Indemnity cost me a grand

David

Leslie

I think after 7 years without complaint they can't touch you for it, unless they can prove it is dangerous etc.

Les

paulr

I recently made a pre planning application, for a garage extension. N.E.Lincs council told me planning permission was needed because the garage extension (although very small in floorspace) exceeded 2.5 m in height within 2m of a boundary.

2.5 m in height is about 8 ft. My friend is also extending his garage, but is having a flat roof to get round the planning laws. ie under 2.5 m.

PaulC72

Your welcome, the other option is of course retrospective planning permission although i am not sure of the possible consequencies of that

jods

Have neighbours got similar sized conservatories? If so, If they got planning permission - You should have no worries getting retrospective permission.

I hope!

AsifScoob

Depends on where you live no?

I recall where I used to live, if you have had the building up for 4 years they weren't able to do anything about it.

I am sure conservatories have rules around number of permanent walls, type of heating and so on.

Good luck with it.

Asif

David Lock

Neighbour has exactly the same which was planned by an architect but neighbour doesn't think it had planning ('cos he has no papers and files everything ) but that was put up a few years before mine. So I am hoping for the best. Don't want to go down the retro route as that will delay things and may put buyers off. David

lordharding

iTrader: (1)

You will be fine with that size

Keep quite

Not worth going to the planners now unless you say you are thinking of building one and they would advise but up in cumbria you would be ok and also its built now and would cost thousands to reduce