New Build Advice - Which green technology works ?

[Cheib]

I started this thread in Jan 2017 thinking we'd have six months of planning to go through before being able to progress to the design stage. That six months of planning turned into fourteen months....finally got our "Certificate of Lawfulness" through on Friday which is the first and key step for us to be able to build a new house. Hopefully we'll be able to meet the architects this week to get the ball rolling...going to be a two stage planning process so we'll be lucky if we're ready to go by the end of the summer I reckon.

Reading through the thread has been a good refresher on lots of issues to be considered!

[Equus]

Cheib said:

...finally got our "Certificate of Lawfulness" through on Friday which is the first and key step for us to be able to build a new house.

Why did you need a Certificate of Lawfulness on an existing house, out of interest?

I assume you're aware of the differences between a Certificate of Lawfulness and Planning Permission, and that the one won't necessarily translate into the other?

[Cheib]

Equus said:

Cheib said:

...finally got our "Certificate of Lawfulness" through on Friday which is the first and key step for us to be able to build a new house.

Why did you need a Certificate of Lawfulness on an existing house, out of interest?

I assume you're aware of the differences between a Certificate of Lawfulness and Planning Permission, and that the one won't necessarily translate into the other?

I won’t pretend to be an expert but broadly as follows.

Our house is an old farm house which has been de-listed...had a bad 1970’s refurb. It sits in the middle of the front half of our “garden” The back half of our garden wasn’t actually garden but former farm land which was combined with the garden something like 30 years ago. It all looks like garden but legally wasn’t!

We needed to get a Certificate of Lawfilness so that our garden is all considered to be garden. Main reason for doing this is that the new house will be cited further back in the plot quite close to what was previously the “divide” in our land. My understanding is that local planners wouldn’t have allowed this with our land not all considered to be garden as they would have said the new house would not have had sufficient garden to the rear/too close to the edge of the garden.

Also slightly complicated by the fact that we have the boundary of the Green Belt and an AONB running along the same approximate line as the split we had in our garden

As I am sure you’re aware need to prove 10 years of use which given we have only lived here for 2 1/2 years wasn’t totally straightforward!

[Equus]

Cheib said:

...The back half of our garden wasn’t actually garden but former farm land which was combined with the garden something like 30 years ago. It all looks like garden but legally wasn’t!

We needed to get a Certificate of Lawfulness so that our garden is all considered to be garden....

The thing with a CLU is that it doesn't actually change the Planning Use Class of the land from agricultural to domestic (garden). The status of the land remains agricultural, It merely makes you immune from enforcement action for the 'unauthorised' use, for as long as it continues (and there needs to be continuity... if there was any break between the land being occupied as garden by the farmhouse, and you taking over 2 1/2 years ago, then technically the clock on the 10 year period should have re-set).

That might sound like splitting hairs, but what it means in practice is that if you submit a Planning Application with a red line incorporating the 'CLU' land, it will (or should) be considered as if that land is still agricultural. If the permission is granted, it will automatically convert the Planning Use of all the land within the red line to C3(a), but it would be a valid reason for refusal that you are proposing residential development in open countryside.

Some LPA's will be more relaxed about it than others, but unless you've already had the tacit agreement of the Planning department that they are willing to accept the conversion of the land to residential, the 'safe' thing to do now that you've got a CLU would be to apply for a change of use on the land, before you apply for the replacement dwelling.

Edited by Equus on Monday 5th March 09:27

[Blue62]

It all sounds rather complicated Chieb, I can't offer any input on the planning though I think you'll get good advice from Equus (you'd think by now he'd be charging for his time on here).

If you ever get the project going feel free to drop me a line as I'm in the process of building a contemporary house of @410m2, I've learned a lot along the way about the value of trying to be efficient and the pitfalls. I think if I had my time again I might challenge some of the assumptions that were made at the planning and design stage, while I am all for saving fuel and the planet I have developed a healthy scepticism.

[Cheib]

Equus said:

Cheib said:

...The back half of our garden wasn’t actually garden but former farm land which was combined with the garden something like 30 years ago. It all looks like garden but legally wasn’t!

We needed to get a Certificate of Lawfulness so that our garden is all considered to be garden....

The thing with a CLU is that it doesn't actually change the Planning Use Class of the land from agricultural to domestic (garden). The status of the land remains agricultural, It merely makes you immune from enforcement action for the 'unauthorised' use, for as long as it continues (and there needs to be continuity... if there was any break between the land being occupied as garden by the farmhouse, and you taking over 2 1/2 years ago, then technically the clock on the 10 year period should have re-set).

That might sound like splitting hairs, but what it means in practice is that if you submit a Planning Application with a red line incorporating the 'CLU' land, it will (or should) be considered as if that land is still agricultural. If the permission is granted, it will automatically convert the Planning Use of all the land within the red line to C3(a), but it would be a valid reason for refusal that you are proposing residential development in open countryside.

Some LPA's will be more relaxed about it than others, but unless you've already had the tacit agreement of the Planning department that they are willing to accept the conversion of the land to residential, the 'safe' thing to do now that you've got a CLU would be to apply for a change of use on the land, before you apply for the replacement dwelling.

Edited by Equus on Monday 5th March 09:27

Hi Equus, I understand some of what you have said and some of what you’ve said is beyond my understanding! I haven’t actually spoken to our planning consultant as we only got the decision through on Friday. However I hope he knows what he’s doing as he used to run the local planning department and it was him that suggested this route!

The CLU we applied for was for Garden Land but the decision has awarded Use of Land for Residential Purposes. Not sure if this covers your latter point ?

[Cheib]

Blue62 said:

It all sounds rather complicated Chieb, I can't offer any input on the planning though I think you'll get good advice from Equus (you'd think by now he'd be charging for his time on here).

If you ever get the project going feel free to drop me a line as I'm in the process of building a contemporary house of @410m2, I've learned a lot along the way about the value of trying to be efficient and the pitfalls. I think if I had my time again I might challenge some of the assumptions that were made at the planning and design stage, while I am all for saving fuel and the planet I have developed a healthy scepticism.

Thanks for the offer I may well take you up on this!

One thing I definitely want to make sure is that someone is on the hook for the performance of the building. I don’t want to build a house and the find it doesn’t deliver as promised and have the Architect blaming the Builder who is blaming whoever specified the insulation or heating system who is blaming the engineers that installed the system.

Not really sure how I achieve that....

[Equus]

Cheib said:

Not sure if this covers your latter point ?

No, it doesn't.

I have known Planners who don't know the rules correctly, themselves.

Your consultant may know what he's doing and have a strategy agreed with the LPA, but it just strikes me as slightly odd because:

a) If they have indicated that they are agreeable to the land formally becoming garden, the CLU would have been superfluous - you might as well have gone straight in with a planning permission for the replacement dwelling that also extended he domestic curtilage in one go.

b) Conversely, if they were not happy with the idea of the land being included as formal garden area within the curtilage of the replacement dwelling, then the CLU doesn't really move you forward any, for the reasons I've explained: it doesn't permanently and irrevocably change the use category of the land to domestic garden, it merely grants the occupier immunity from enforcement action for as long as the unauthorised use continues unbroken.

It does, admittedly, add some weight in favour of allowing the formal change of use of the land, but not enough that I'd want to rely on it on its own... I think if there was any doubt, I'd want to take the intermediate step of a formal Planning Application for change of use to domestic curtilage, before splurging a lot of money on the design of a replacement dwelling and the application for same.

Edited by Equus on Monday 5th March 12:33

[Blue62]

Cheib said:

Thanks for the offer I may well take you up on this!

One thing I definitely want to make sure is that someone is on the hook for the performance of the building. I don’t want to build a house and the find it doesn’t deliver as promised and have the Architect blaming the Builder who is blaming whoever specified the insulation or heating system who is blaming the engineers that installed the system.

Not really sure how I achieve that....

I have engaged an army of advisers, it costs but it was the only way for me to mitigate the risk as my building knowledge is the square root of FA. The M&E consultant did all the calcs for heating, ventilation, electric etc and I'm sure you will engage one once you get started. I would only advise that you press your architect on how airtight the building needs to be and what level is acceptable or necessary, I ignored this part of the process and gave the architect more license than I should and as a result will end up with a home that has to have MVHR, thermal exterior doors, interior doors that are exacting in size and other elements to ensure the system works efficiently. It has impacted on extraction in the kitchen and our choice of wood burner (a right battle with the M&E guy). Good luck!

[Cheib]

Equus said:

Cheib said:

Not sure if this covers your latter point ?

No, it doesn't.

I have known Planners who don't know the rules correctly, themselves.

Your consultant may know what he's doing and have a strategy agreed with the LPA, but it just strikes me as slightly odd because:

a) If they have indicated that they are agreeable to the land formally becoming garden, the CLU would have been superfluous - you might as well have gone straight in with a planning permission for the replacement dwelling that also extended he domestic curtilage in one go.

b) Conversely, if they were not happy with the idea of the land being included as formal garden area within the curtilage of the replacement dwelling, then the CLU doesn't really move you forward any, for the reasons I've explained: it doesn't permanently and irrevocably change the use category of the land to domestic garden, it merely grants the occupier immunity from enforcement action for as long as the unauthorised use continues unbroken.

It does, admittedly, add some weight in favour of allowing the formal change of use of the land, but not enough that I'd want to rely on it on its own... I think if there was any doubt, I'd want to take the intermediate step of a formal Planning Application for change of use to domestic curtilage, before splurging a lot of money on the design of a replacement dwelling and the application for same.

Edited by Equus on Monday 5th March 12:33

Thanks again for your detailed input.

I’ve only just read your post and had already spoken to our planning consultant. The CLU we have got is one for “existing use or development”, it was explained to me that they haven’t given us one for “garden” as this may have given us right to build structures such as a garage/shed in the part of our garden that is AONB/Green Belt...apparently we still may be able to do this but we wouldn’t want to do that anyway.

I am going to ask him about the step you suggest above of change of use to domestic curtilage and see what he says.

[Cheib]

Blue62 said:

Cheib said:

Thanks for the offer I may well take you up on this!

One thing I definitely want to make sure is that someone is on the hook for the performance of the building. I don’t want to build a house and the find it doesn’t deliver as promised and have the Architect blaming the Builder who is blaming whoever specified the insulation or heating system who is blaming the engineers that installed the system.

Not really sure how I achieve that....

I have engaged an army of advisers, it costs but it was the only way for me to mitigate the risk as my building knowledge is the square root of FA. The M&E consultant did all the calcs for heating, ventilation, electric etc and I'm sure you will engage one once you get started. I would only advise that you press your architect on how airtight the building needs to be and what level is acceptable or necessary, I ignored this part of the process and gave the architect more license than I should and as a result will end up with a home that has to have MVHR, thermal exterior doors, interior doors that are exacting in size and other elements to ensure the system works efficiently. It has impacted on extraction in the kitchen and our choice of wood burner (a right battle with the M&E guy). Good luck!

We’re meeting our architects on Thursday. My wife is going to want to discuss aesthetics and I am going to want to be discussing contracts and who is responsible for what! We refurbished our old place in London so I learnt the hard way a bit with that project....this one is on a different scale though.

[rovermorris999]

All this sounds like hell! Good luck with it. Now I know why I like old places out in the sticks.

[Cheib]

rovermorris999 said:

All this sounds like hell! Good luck with it. Now I know why I like old places out in the sticks.

Ha. We bought the place to refurb 2 1/2 years ago...since then we’ve got to know the house better and had a scheme done to refurb it. Wasn’t cheap but it would have been a largely amazing home with a couple of compromises.

Thing is for the cost of doing the refurb we can pretty much build a brand new house (VAT economics are significant!). The other issue is that by building a new house further back in the plot we create sufficient space to be able to build two houses on the front garden. The economics of those will pretty much pay for building the new house but we won’t build hem until we’re ready to sell/downsize at some point in the future. As our it’so our primary residence we will effectively have created land bank that is CGT free.