Permitted development rights: what they actually cover

Permitted development rights are planning permission, granted in advance by the government rather than by your council. That is the part people get wrong. The rights do not mean the work is outside the planning system, and they do not mean nobody can object. They mean permission already exists, subject to limits and conditions, so no application is needed provided the work stays inside them.

Step outside any limit and you have no permission at all, not a slightly irregular one.

Where the rights come from in law

Section 59 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 lets the Secretary of State make development orders granting planning permission for specified classes of development. The current general order is the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, amended many times since.

Article 3(1) of that Order grants planning permission for the classes set out in Schedule 2. Schedule 2 is divided into parts, each dealing with a category of development, and each part is divided into classes lettered A, B, C and onwards. So a rear extension is Part 1 Class A, a porch is Part 1 Class D, a shed is Part 1 Class E, and a change from a shop to a home under the office-to-residential style provisions sits in Part 3.

The parts worth knowing exist include Part 1 for houses, Part 2 for minor operations such as fences and painting, Part 3 for changes of use, Part 4 for temporary buildings and uses, Part 6 for agricultural development, Part 7 for extensions to non-domestic buildings, Part 11 for demolition, Part 14 for renewable energy, Part 16 for electronic communications and Part 20 for new homes on top of existing buildings.

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own orders with different classes and different limits. None of the classes below reads across to them.

Rights are conditional, not automatic

Each class is written in the same shape. A statement of what is permitted, then a set of paragraphs beginning "development is not permitted by Class X if", then conditions that apply to development that is permitted.

The limitations are the dimensions and situations that take you outside the class: heights, depths, distances from boundaries, proportions of curtilage, positions relative to the principal elevation. The conditions are obligations that bind you afterwards, such as the requirement that an outbuilding is used only for purposes incidental to the house, or that materials are of similar appearance to the existing building.

Prior approval is a third layer, and it confuses people because it looks like an application. Several classes grant permission subject to the council first approving specified matters, such as transport impacts, contamination, flooding or noise. You submit an application for prior approval, the council considers only the listed matters, and if it does not respond within the statutory period the development may proceed. It is not a planning application, and the council cannot refuse it on grounds outside the specified list.

What takes your rights away

Five things, and any one of them is enough.

An Article 4 direction. A council can make a direction withdrawing specified permitted development rights across an area or from a single property. These are common in conservation areas for front elevations and roofs, and in university towns for changes between class C3 and class C4 houses in multiple occupation. Directions are published on the council's website and usually mapped. Whether your street is covered by an Article 4 direction in a conservation area is a check to do first, not last.

A planning condition. Permissions for new estates very often remove Part 1 rights, so that the council keeps control over extensions and outbuildings. Article 3(4) of the Order confirms that permitted development does not authorise anything contrary to a condition on an existing permission. The condition is on the original permission for the house, which may have been granted decades ago and which most owners have never read.

Designated land. Conservation areas, National Parks, National Landscapes, the Broads and World Heritage Sites attract tighter limits in several classes, and remove some rights entirely, such as side extensions and cladding.

Listed building status. Several classes do not apply within the curtilage of a listed building, and in any event listed building consent is a separate requirement for works affecting special interest, with criminal liability for proceeding without it.

The building type. Most of Part 1 applies to a dwellinghouse, and a dwellinghouse for these purposes excludes a building containing flats and a flat inside such a building. Flat owners have almost no householder permitted development rights.

Illustrative example: a rear extension on a 1930s semi

Take a semi-detached house built in 1936, not listed, not in a conservation area, with no conditions removing permitted development rights. The owner wants a single-storey rear extension.

Under Part 1 Class A the questions are, in order: how far does it project beyond the original rear wall, is that within the limit for a semi-detached house, is the height within the eaves and overall limits, does it come within 2 m of a boundary and therefore attract the lower eaves limit, do the extension and every other building on the plot keep total coverage under half the curtilage, and are the materials of similar appearance.

The word "original" is doing a lot of work. If the house was extended by a previous owner in 1998, that extension counts as part of what has already been built, and the remaining allowance is measured from the 1936 rear wall. The rear extension depth limits set out how the deeper projections and the prior approval route work.

The other trap on this house is the side. Where the plot wraps around, part of the garden may sit forward of the plane of the principal elevation, and identifying that plane is a question of fact rather than of which door you use. Getting the principal elevation right settles several Class A and Class E questions at once.

How to prove your works were permitted development

You cannot prove it by building it and hoping. The formal route is a Lawful Development Certificate, applied for under section 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 for proposed development, or under section 191 for something already built.

A certificate for proposed development costs half the fee of the equivalent planning application, produces a formal decision, and cannot be revoked unless it was obtained by concealing or misrepresenting the facts. A certificate for existing development requires evidence covering the whole of the relevant period, which is harder and more expensive.

Buyers' solicitors ask for one on almost every sale involving an extension or an outbuilding. Getting it before the work starts is cheaper than getting it during a conveyancing chain, and much cheaper than an enforcement investigation.

Keep the drawings you built from, dimensioned and dated, and photographs of the work in progress. Where a measurement is close to a limit, treat that as a reason to apply rather than a reason to round down.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Permitted development rights vary by site, are amended frequently and can be removed by condition or Article 4 direction. A Lawful Development Certificate is the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful, and you should check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on anything here.

If it turns out you need an application, browse the 66 PlanScope report types or enter your postcode on PlanScope to see what your project is likely to need. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.