Almost every aspect of our lives is governed by some sort of law, and the business of building a house, or even just house extensions, is one aspect of which that is especially true, and which is covered by the various Building Laws.
Return to Part One
The Building Laws:
Planning and Building Regulations
Possibly the most well-known of the building laws are Planning an Building Regulations. You might find that you do not need to apply for planning consent if you are building only an extension to your existing property. This is because with the Permitted Development Rights system a great number of house extensions are able to be erected planning-free.
However, you should keep in mind that for those of us living in National Park or Conservation Area land, the amount and kinds of work which can be carried out under Permitted Development is normally reduced significantly.
It is at the discretion of your local authority to completely remove Permitted Development Rights if it decides that the work you intend to carry out could be threatening to the character of the immediate area.
If you are unsure of anything to do with the developments which may or may not be allowed in your area, simply get in touch with your local authority planning department to find out all you need to know and to get further advice on any of the building laws discussed here.
Building Control
Another of the building laws is Building Control. Whether or not your new extension requires planning permission before it is allowed to go ahead, it will definitely require Building Regulations Approval. The building regulations are rules which have been set by Parliament in order to ensure that a series of minimum design and construction standards are achieved and maintained in all building projects. The areas of your build which these rules apply to are numerous, from fire and other kinds of safety issues, to insulation, drainage systems on site, and access to and from the site, too.
The building control officers merely enforce the building laws. This means that they do not supervise the build project for you, but simply visit the site in order to ensure that your project adheres to the minimum standards relevant to the project. What most self builders and extenders will do is to send a Full Plan Submission to the local authority. Under these circumstances, the extender or builder will pay a fee and throughout the build, at various stages along its course, the building inspector will visit the site and inspect the work as it is carried out.
Alternatively, it is possible to submit a Building Notice. What this is is a statement within which you will need to inform the council that you are complying with the building laws in constructing your extension. The Notice requires that you give at least 48 hours notice of your intended start point of the project. Just as is the case with a Full Plan Submission, surveyors will visit the site at certain points throughout the build in order to inspect the work and let you know of any issues they have discerned. This method is considered a little more risky, as you do not have the security of an approved plan to adhere to and the building control surveyor may only find out afterwards that you have not kept to the requirements of any one of the regulations requirements. It can turn out to be a difficult and costly method of going about the construction if problems are found along the way which will ultimately need to be put right.
Listed Buildings
Building laws are especially concerned with buildings which are deemed to be of special architectural, historical, or aesthetic importance. Any alterations planned for a listed building, including internal alterations, will need to be consented to. It is actually a criminal offence to alter a listed building if you have not been granted consent to do so. When it comes to working on a listed building, the planners will invariably consider the original structure to be of much greater importance than the extension you have proposed. Any extension you intend to build will therefore need to be complementary to the character, appearance, and historic materials used in the construction of your listed home.
Depending upon the size and extent of the extension you have proposed to add to the listed building, it might the case that you will need planning permission as well as listed building consent before you are allowed to take any further steps towards making the planned alterations to the property.
Some good news for those of you who do wish to carry out work on listed properties is that there is no VAT on any approved material alterations to any listed buildings. However, in order to truly benefit from this you must make sure that the work is carried out by a properly VAT-registered contractor and zero rated, too.
Continue to Part Three
Image: Geograph.org.uk
The post A Guide to House Extensions: Part Two – Building Laws appeared first on The Green Home.