conservatory planning permission

wannaberich41

not sure if posted in the right place or not. So i do apologise. Does anyone know when the law changed about planning permission for a conservatory? Do you have to have planning permission. The reason im asking is, that a house im interested in , they apprarently had a glass house type conservatory on the property over 14 years ago and then replaced it about 12 years ago. Would they have had to get planning permission for this. The replacement one was donated to them not purchased and was only slightly larger than their previous one. This is what they are telling me. Any advise would be very much apprecaited.

BitterAndTwisted

Why don't you ask your Local Authority's Planning Dept?

As far as I am aware (and that's not saying much) conservatories only require PP if they're over a certain square footage but they most probably are required to adhere to building regulations. This is probably something the Planning Dept could help you with as well, I expect

Hammyman

If the conservatory was replaced with one the same size, planning permission is not required. If its an addition and depending on the percentage of size it is of the original property and how far it is from the road if there's a back street, it can be done under building regs.

Richard_Webster

If the work was done 12 yaers ago the whole thing is academic. It is too late for any planning enforcement and whether or not permission was needed when it was built doesn't matter now at all. If you have to dos o you could get a certificate of lawful development if you can show it has been like that for 10 yaers but usually it isn't worth bothering to do this.

Be careful you don't Planning and Building Regulations mixed up. Most conservatories don't have to comply with the regulations but there are some issues that require compliance e.g. having no door to isolate the conservatory to the rest of the house. Whilst it is very unlikely that the Council would do anything after 12 years the issue comes up because theoretically they could - but it would be amazingly bad PR for them if they did.