Planning, handled

We usually survey within 7 days. We measure the garden and the distances to your boundaries. We also check what no map can show:

• where the building sits in relation to the front of the house;
• how much of the garden is already built on;
• whether your home was itself created under permitted development rights, such as a former office or barn, or built as new storeys under those rights.

Before you sign anything, we tell you in writing which of the three routes below your building takes.

Route 1: Permitted development (no application)

A garden building needs no planning application when all of these are true:

• What it's for. It is used for something that goes with the house, such as an office, studio, gym, sauna or hobby room. It is not used as primary living accommodation, such as a bedroom, bathroom or kitchen, and it is not a separate home.
• One storey, and not in front of the main front wall of the house.
• Height. Within 2 m of a boundary, it is no taller than 2.5 m. Further in, it can be up to 4 m with a dual-pitched roof or 3 m with any other roof, with the eaves no higher than 2.5 m. On a flat roof, the eaves are measured to where the wall meets the top of the roof, so the roof itself can be no higher than 2.5 m wherever the building stands.
• Coverage. Together with extensions and other outbuildings, it covers no more than half the land around the original house.
• No veranda, balcony or raised platform. Decking is fine up to 0.3 m high.
• A house, not a flat or maisonette. It is also not in the grounds of a listed building, where any outbuilding needs permission.
• Rights still in place. No Article 4 direction and no condition on an earlier planning permission has removed them.

Protected land has extra rules:

• In a conservation area, a National Landscape (the new name for an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty; the Kent Downs and the Surrey Hills are both near us), a National Park, the Broads or a World Heritage Site, nothing can go between the side of the house and the boundary.
• In a National Landscape, a National Park, the Broads or a World Heritage Site, buildings more than 20 m from the house are limited to 10 m² in total.

Route 2: A Lawful Development Certificate (permitted development, confirmed)

A Lawful Development Certificate (LDC) is the council's formal answer that your building is lawful. In effect, it confirms the building is permitted development. It is not planning permission, and you don't have to get one. Once it is issued, a building put up as described is presumed lawful. That is worth having if anyone questions it later, including when you sell.

We recommend one whenever there is room for doubt, for example:

• a conservation area or other protected land;
• an Article 4 direction nearby that may cover outbuildings;
• a listed building next door;
• a building close to the 50% limit or the 20 m rule;
• a covered canopy;
• a garden room with both a shower room and a kitchenette.

• What we do: we prepare the drawings and the application, and submit it in your name.
• Council fee: half the planning fee. For a building in the garden that is £136 (national fee from 1 April 2026).
• Timing: the council should decide within 8 weeks. We don't start work in your garden until the certificate is issued, unless you ask us to in writing.

Route 3: Planning permission

You need a planning application when the building falls outside the rules above. The most common reasons:

• An annexe. Permitted development does not cover primary living accommodation such as a bedroom, bathroom or kitchen, so an annexe that someone sleeps in normally needs planning permission, wherever you live.
• Height. A golf simulator room, for example, needs around 3 m. That is above the 2.5 m limit for a flat roof.
• Position or setting. The building is in front of the house, covers more than half the garden, is in the grounds of a listed building or belongs to a flat or maisonette, or an Article 4 direction has removed the rights.

If your home is listed, work to the listed building itself that affects its character also needs listed building consent. There is no fee for it, and carrying out work that needs consent without getting it first is a criminal offence.

• What we do: our architectural partner draws the building. We submit the application and deal with the council, and you hear from us at every step.
• Council fee (from 1 April 2026): £272 for a householder application for a building in the garden, or £548 where the work alters or extends the house itself. The council confirms the fee when it checks the application.
• Timing: the council should decide within 8 weeks. If it needs longer, it has to agree an extension with you in writing.

Planning decides what you can build and where. Building regulations are separate: they cover how the building is built. For a detached, single-storey garden building:

Before contract, we ask building control about the points your project raises and give you their answer in writing. Where approval is needed, we prepare and manage the application. On a full plans application to the council, building control should decide within 5 weeks, or within 2 months if you agree to that. At handover you receive the completion certificate where building regulations apply, with your electrical certificate and every manufacturer's guarantee.

When an application is needed, allow about 11–12 weeks from survey to decision, and sometimes longer. Your dates are written into the contract. If the council decides later than the programme allows, the dates move by the same amount of time. Once permission is granted, you normally have three years to start.

Council fees rise each year on 1 April.

• Nothing is built, and nothing more is owed beyond the planning package.
• We go through the council's reasons with the architect and tell you plainly whether a changed design is worth sending back in. Any change is priced in writing before we do it, and a new application pays the council's fee again.
• You can also appeal to the Planning Inspectorate free of charge. For a refused householder application, you have 12 weeks from the decision letter (less if an enforcement notice has been served). For a certificate there is normally no deadline.
• Nobody can promise approval, and we won't.

• Trees. In a conservation area, you must give the council 6 weeks' notice before cutting down or doing most work to a tree. A tree with a Tree Preservation Order needs the council's consent first. The address check shows protected trees where the council publishes them.
• Party wall. Your neighbour must be told under the Party Wall Act if the work builds on or at the boundary line, or digs below and near their foundations. If they appoint a surveyor, those fees are not in our price.