Buying a house - 4 year planning rule

free1000

We're about to buy a house that has a lovely big summerhouse in the garden. Its over the 4 meter permitted development height and has not got planning permission.

We've looked at the government planning legislation and found the excitingly named section 171b of the 1990 planning act. This states that a building erected without planning can become lawful if it is not subject to enforcement action before 4 years has elapsed. (www).legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1990/8/section/171B

Confusingly, there is also a 10 year provision for building that includes a change of use.

I can't figure out logically if building an outbuilding that is not habitable, e.g: a shed, summerhouse etc. that does not fit into the permitted development rules constitutes a change of use. Because it's an outbuilding, I can't tell what it's 'use' really is. Its ancillary to a dwelling house that has been there for 70 years or more, so I assume its usage category is something like 'outbuilding ancillary to a dwelling', but such a category does not exist on the official list of building use classes. (www).drawingandplanning.com/residential_applications/change_of_use.html

Assuming that building a new summerhouse in the land surrounding a dwelling is not a 'change of use' we ought to be fine with the 4 year limit.

The summerhouse is potentially a nice building to convert to an extension/annexe as well as a valuable place for storage, so I'd hate to buy the house and find it needs to be knocked down. We've factored the building into the price we negotiated with the seller.

As far as we can tell the building has been there more than 3 years (from aerial photography) so we'd only have to live there about a year before it became 'legal', but we have only the vendors word that it was built before that, probably around 2003-4, so just too new for the 10 year rule.

The rules are ambiguous about this case, but it would seem to be a very common occurrence, so I'd welcome any input from people who have experienced something similar.

dimbo61

You could speak to the council planning office and not give exact details( ie address) or speak to a building surveyor, planning expert, solicitor

free1000

dimbo61 wrote: »

You could speak to the council planning office and not give exact details( ie address) or speak to a building surveyor, planning expert, solicitor

You are right, I'll do that after the holiday weekend when people are back at work. Maybe I'll call a planning department in a different region.

I was thinking that the knowledgable folk on this forum might have met a similar case and I could get some horses mouth experience rather than that from a professional as this to me looks like something that may be pretty commonplace.

Old_Git

speak to your solicitor ,thats what you are paying them for .
If it goes tits up you could be out thousands

planning_officer

It's not a change of use and the 4 year rule applies here. The use of a dwelling and it's garden is Use Class C3 - Residential. The whole planning unit is the same 'use' and a summerhouse is just as residential as a house.

Richard_Webster

t's not a change of use and the 4 year rule applies here. The use of a dwelling and it's garden is Use Class C3 - Residential. The whole planning unit is the same 'use' and a summerhouse is just as residential as a house.

Naturally I agree with this, but would also add that whilst "change of use" is not relevant, "breach of condition" might be.

If, when the house was first constructed, its planning permission had a condition which took away the "permitted development rights" and forbade extensions and alterations without express planning consent, then the construction of anything would be a breach of condition which would not be immune for 10 years. You do need to check the original permission to see if there are any such conditions restricting extensions etc.

This won't apply if the house was built pre-1948 when modern Planning legislation came into force and would be quite unusual until the 1980s when Councils started to impose these conditions in some developments.