planning application extension

bobby_1

Hi after opinions please, hoping to have an extension put on the back of our house arranged to have drawings and building regs made up by local drafts person who put in our application for planning permission, this has been refused, I rang the case officer dealing with our application and he says we should have applied for hpd large extension not full planning permission. We have paid this guy over £2000 for the drawings, planning fees and building regs charges, £650 of which we have lost because of his going down the wrong planning route.

teneighty

Thinking of a way to save the current situation what was the reason for refusal? You get a second chance with a resubmission so you might be able to make some small amendments to satisfy the planners.

You need to have a chat with your designer. If he really has submitted a full planning application when a larger home extension application would have done he sounds like he doesn't really know what he is doing. That is very basic stuff any competent designer should know.

Several things sound rather unusual. Normally you would wait to do Building Regs plans until after you have secured planning approval. The fee sounds rather high for what I assume is a single storey extension. Your designer should be taking control of the process and advising you, not leaving you to speak to the planning officer directly.

From the sounds of it I doubt he is a member of a professional institution so you probably have no formal complaints procedure but you do have the usual common law recourse if he has acted without sufficient professional competence.

Furts

You also need to establish if your extension has gone through the Buildings Regulations process. You imply that the fees have been paid but if the checking has not yet started then you could stop this happening and re-submit new drawings when you have an agreed design.

This assumes that the Buildings Regulation fee has gone to the requisite person, and is not banked in the designers account pending the outcome of the Planning Permission. Have you checked on this?

bobby_1

Thanks for your replies, I'm going to ring building control in the morning and find out if they have received payment and also arrange to meet with the designer.