In some designated areas of the country, permitted development rights are more restricted for example;

• A Conservation Area or a Listed Building
• National Park or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
• A World Heritage Site or
• The Norfolk or Suffolk Broads.

You should also note that your local planning authority may have removed some of the permitted development rights in your area by issuing what is referred to as an 'Article 4' direction. An article 4 direction is made by the local planning authority to remove or restrict permitted development rights. It can be for a particular area (e.g. a whole conservation area), site or type of development. This will mean that you will be required to submit a planning application for work which normally would not need one. If there has been a previous extension added to you property, it may have used up all or part of your scope for development under Permitted Development.

If there is a hard and fast rule governing Planning Permissions, it is that there is no hard and fast rule. The guidance given on the subject is littered with words and phrases such as ‘certain types of work’, ‘restricted’, ‘may have removed’, ‘conditions and limitations’ and ‘normally would not’. On that basis, the only hard and fast on the subject is, ‘never assume’. The Government’s own Planning Portal advises, ‘that you should contact your local planning authority and discuss your proposal before any work begins’, in other words, ‘never assume’.

In a conservation area, local authorities must take in to account the need to preserve or enhance the area's special character when deciding whether to grant planning permission. This means that planning permission is needed for some changes that would usually be considered 'permitted development'.

If your property is in a conservation area, then getting planning permission is even more difficult and you will need to make a compelling case to get planning permission for carrying out works to your house. Listed Building Consent is required in addition to Planning Permission for any alteration or addition to a listed building, this includes internal modifications.

Planning law can be complex and complicated, it is easy to get it wrong and many people do. It is said that ignorance of the law is no excuse or defence and likewise, breaching local Planning Restrictions, because you didn’t check with the planning department, will not be accepted as a mitigating circumstance if you fall foul of Planning Regulations. Failure to apply for and get the appropriate permissions when extending or carrying out alterations to your property can cause various problems, either at the time or further down the line.

Firstly, if you decide at some point to sell your property, any buyer’s conveyancer will do local authority searches and will examine the title deeds to the property. If you have carried out work to the house without getting the necessary permissions from the local authority, this will show a mismatch in these searches and your prospective buyer will want to know why. It is unlikely that a sale will be completed until the mismatch has been addressed, which may mean applying for permission retrospectively. The need for this will considerably lengthen and complicate the selling process and may even put any prospective buyer off. If work has been done to a property without the necessary permissions and no attempt at enforcement of the requirement has been made, after 4 years a Certificate of Lawfulness can be applied for.

If a neighbour sees an extension or alteration which they either dislike or have concerns about the effect of the work on their property, they may decide to question whether or not you were granted the appropriate permissions to carry out the work. This would normally lead to an investigation by the local authority planning department and if they see an unauthorised build they may ask for a retrospective planning application to be submitted. Such planning applications are often unsuccessful as in many cases, the planning officers and committee may view the applicant with less than normal sympathy and take a much harsher attitude to any aspects of the project which do not meet their approval. They may see a retrospective application as one which has been an attempt to bypass the system.

With any application which has been refused, the applicant is free to appeal the decision or resubmit a subsequent application with alterations made to the plans, based on conversations had with a planning officer. With retrospective applications, where the work has already been completed, alterations to plans are often not possible. Once an application has been refused and then gone through the appeals process, the local authority can issue an enforcement notice requiring that the work done to the property be undone and the property returned to the condition it was in before the work was carried out.

In one such case, a home owner had assumed Permitted Development rights on their property and built a large dormer style attic conversion. Not only was the conversion eligible for Permitted Development, the dormer was larger than would have been allowed had these rights been applicable, so the conversion would have required an application for Planning Permission. The conversion would have been rejected because of the dormer. The conversion was reported to the local authority and the homeowner was told that they should have applied for permission, which they then did retrospectively, but with no amendment made to the dormer size. Their application was refused and they were told why and invited to make changes to comply with planning requirements. They reapplied, without the advised amendments and were once again refused. At this stage it was made clear that the next stage would be an enforcement order, requiring them to undo the conversion and put the roof of the house back to as it was. The homeowner stated that they could not afford to undo their conversion as they had spent a great deal of money on the work. After some lengthy discussions which failed to resolve the situation, the local authority suggested that if all else failed, they would have a contractor do the work and take a charge on the property to recoup the costs.

 This was an extreme case but it illustrates the powers a local authority has at its disposal should it choose to use them. Failure to apply for planning permission when required can eventually lead to an enforcement notice being served by the local authority requiring reversal of the works and the authority’s enforcement officers have the power to carry out the enforcement of the order to its conclusion. It should be noted that failure to comply with an enforcement notice is a criminal offence.

To ensure a safe and trouble-free passage through the planning process, it is best to engage with a professional who knows their way around the subject. This may appear to some as an unnecessary expense but consider the cost of some early professional advice in comparison with the cost and inconvenience of delays later in the process, possibly including resubmissions or worst case scenario, enforcement issues. The early spend can often prove to be a good investment, later in the day. 

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