APPROVALS

Planning & Bldg. Regs. CDM & Party Wall & Landlord – Caution needed regarding Restrictive Covenants

Planning for Home Owners

  • The Home Owners extension planning fee is currently £258 per application and the same price if you include both rear extension and loft extension on the same application. The Planning Portal add a £64.00 admin. fee (in 2024) on top of this.
  • Planning normally takes 8-9 weeks for Leeds City Council to deal with if it is done by a Planning Officer (delegated powers) without going to committee.
  • I normally adjust internal layouts, if needed, once planning is approved or if the planners request changes during the application. If necessary after approval I will ask for a “minor modification” planning approval if the fenestration or roof needs to change at your request, otherwise you do not need planning approval for internal arrangement changes.
  • I normally advise clients to wait until the planning is approved before commissioning the more detailed information required for building regulations.
  • I would however suggest that you use the time during the planning application to have a detailed kitchen design done and price up your favoured kitchen units and finishes etc…

More often if you wish to do something a little ambitious you will likely need to make a “free go” second application and may need to take that to appeal, eg dormers windows to a front elevation.

(The “free go” facility is likely to be dropped late 2023-2024)

Leeds City Council limit their time input considering homeowner applications see doc v1.4…

Planning Appeals for Home Owners

The good news here is that there is currently no fee to pay the Authority for this, but it is essential that you get all your ducks in a row before embarking on this wordy venture. Depending upon the complexity of your requirements, I may be able to do a very simple and quick appeal to deliver an Allowed Appeal (Approval).   But nothing is ever guaranteed by precedent or the desired misalignment of the planning judgement of Planning Case Officers and Planning Inspectors. Apparently Random decisions seem to be common place.

Planning Appeals – “The onus is on the appeal parties to submit all evidence they rely on in support of their respective arguments relating to the proposal itself & the costs applications. Inspectors have no remit to find precedents or check the accuracy of evidence before them”..

Building Regulations for Home Owners

  • Building Regulations fees are normally plans and inspection fees that add up to £650 (< 40m2) and £750 (> 40m2)+ £125 or £225 for extra works.
  • The building regulations usually takes 6 weeks at plan stage. It is during these 6 weeks that you are best to obtain your prices from builders. But I have had an approval in 3 days only on a couple of occasions.
  • I normally produce the building regulations and Schedule of Works at the same time as they are interlinked. Thus when the building regulations application is submitted the schedule of works and Building Regulations Application can be used to obtain prices from your builders.

Hyperlink to Sample Project Document from 2017

  • Where structural calculations are required. I normally ask you to commission these from one of a couple of structural engineers directly. I bundle up what they need to do so that they can advise you what it will cost and then forward structural design to building control for approval. If the structural information is a bit slow coming through then I ask building control to issue a conditional approval.
  • Sometimes you can get the builder to include for the structural calculations as part of their tender. This can sometimes work out cheaper for the client.

Construction Design and Management Regulations

(CDM & BSA) for Home Owners

Work safe – home-owners have a responsibility to keep their project safe – but can pass this responsibility on to a Principal Designer and/or Builder.

NB. OWLarchitecture.com do not act as Principal Designer under The Design and Construction Management (CDM) Regulations or The Building Safety Act (BSA)

“Domestic clients If you are having work done on your own home, or the home of a family member, and it is not in connection with a business, you will be a domestic client. The only responsibility a domestic client has under CDM 2015 is to appoint a principal designer and a principal contractor when there is more than one contractor. However, if you do not do this, (as is common practice) your duties as a domestic client are automatically transferred to the contractor or principal contractor. If you already have a relationship with your designer before the work starts, the designer can take on your duties, provided there is a written agreement between you and the designer to do so.”

See

http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/areyou/client.htm

http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg411.htm

Download CDM for Clients

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Party Wall Agreements for Home Owners

Download the Party Wall Act Booklet

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