More Outbuilding Planning Permission Woe
Discussion
Reading through the thread about the chap with the outbuilding with no planning permission made me wonder if PH (Hi Equus) could come up with something for our planning issues.
We built a cabin in our garden, went through planning and building regs, all signed-off, happy days.
We put a clause in the planning to make it clear that we were not trying to build a separate dwelling in the garden, something along the lines of 'use ancillary to the main dwelling'. My wife has been teaching yoga from home for five years, and her clients visited her there. More recently we hired the place out for AirBnB (there is a bathroom and a toaster, but no 'kitchen'). Our grumpy neighbour got the hump and said 'you can't do that, its a separate dwelling and I don't like cars driving past my house, so its a nuisance'. Fair enough I thought and applied to the council's 'do I need planning permission?' service.
Turns out that part of the planning department is understaffed and three months behind. So nice neighbour gets enforcement to come round and they give us an enforcement notice telling us we need to vary our planning permission. Despite a few phone calls the enforcement officer can't tell us what we need to change the planning to. We don't want to have it classed as a business premises or a separate dwelling, we have AirBnB every other weekend in term time and the wife teaches yoga for six hours a week tops, but it is all 'ancillary to the use of the house' - we watch movies, have friends over, stick the kids in it after school etc.
We are definitely NOT looking to change it into a separate dwelling or a holiday let. What is the deal with planning? Is there a policy document somewhere about short-term lets / AirBnB? Does the enforcement notice stand if he can't say what part of our permission we are in breach of?
Looking forward to input...
We built a cabin in our garden, went through planning and building regs, all signed-off, happy days.
We put a clause in the planning to make it clear that we were not trying to build a separate dwelling in the garden, something along the lines of 'use ancillary to the main dwelling'. My wife has been teaching yoga from home for five years, and her clients visited her there. More recently we hired the place out for AirBnB (there is a bathroom and a toaster, but no 'kitchen'). Our grumpy neighbour got the hump and said 'you can't do that, its a separate dwelling and I don't like cars driving past my house, so its a nuisance'. Fair enough I thought and applied to the council's 'do I need planning permission?' service.
Turns out that part of the planning department is understaffed and three months behind. So nice neighbour gets enforcement to come round and they give us an enforcement notice telling us we need to vary our planning permission. Despite a few phone calls the enforcement officer can't tell us what we need to change the planning to. We don't want to have it classed as a business premises or a separate dwelling, we have AirBnB every other weekend in term time and the wife teaches yoga for six hours a week tops, but it is all 'ancillary to the use of the house' - we watch movies, have friends over, stick the kids in it after school etc.
We are definitely NOT looking to change it into a separate dwelling or a holiday let. What is the deal with planning? Is there a policy document somewhere about short-term lets / AirBnB? Does the enforcement notice stand if he can't say what part of our permission we are in breach of?
Looking forward to input...
It's difficult to give you a definitive answer without seeing the actual wording of the Planning Approval Notice, but I'm guessing that you will have a Planning Condition listed thereon that basically says either that the outbuilding can only be used for a purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the dwellinghouse (which can be interpreted as not alowing anyone to sleep in there) or else that it can only be occupied by members of the same household (in which case it can be occupied/slept in as a 'granny annex', but only by members of the same family as the main household).
In either case, you would need to submit an application to vary or remove that Condition... but don't expect it to be easy.
The problem (from the LPA's perspective) is coming up with a form of words that gives you sufficient flexibility to allow occasional AirBnB type lets, without allowing it to be used as an entirely separate dwelling.
It's possible for them to do it by imposing restrictions on the length of each individual let (say, no more than 14 days) and/or the total number of days that the annexe can be let out per year, with a requirement that you keep a log of all bookings that is available for the Local Authority to inspect at any time, but such a Condition is a general pain in the arse for everyone involved, so don't expect them to be enthusiastic about it.
In either case, you would need to submit an application to vary or remove that Condition... but don't expect it to be easy.
The problem (from the LPA's perspective) is coming up with a form of words that gives you sufficient flexibility to allow occasional AirBnB type lets, without allowing it to be used as an entirely separate dwelling.
It's possible for them to do it by imposing restrictions on the length of each individual let (say, no more than 14 days) and/or the total number of days that the annexe can be let out per year, with a requirement that you keep a log of all bookings that is available for the Local Authority to inspect at any time, but such a Condition is a general pain in the arse for everyone involved, so don't expect them to be enthusiastic about it.
Edited by Equus on Thursday 22 October 19:58
Jeremy-75qq8 said:
I am surprised that air Bnb can be considered incidental to the use of the property. My view is it isn’t.
Dance lessons. Well you can work from home which would be incidental but I can see the issue if there are lots of people visiting
It isn't: that's the OP's problem, I think.Dance lessons. Well you can work from home which would be incidental but I can see the issue if there are lots of people visiting
AirBnB is a funny one, 'cos it is generally considered acceptable if people are staying in the main house (subject to limits on frequency if you're in London). Presumably because it has always (long before the modern Planning system came in) been seen as acceptable to let out individual spare rooms in a private dwelling, provided that their occupants are living as part of the household.
Dance lessons is certainly stretching the limits of acceptability in terms of working from home, too.
barryrs said:
I completed an application for a mates home office/cabin and was surprised to see a condition that prevented any visitors.
No problem for him but it was the first time I had seen it.
If the wording was as straightforward as that (ie. plain 'no visitors', not, 'no visitors associated with the business use of the building') then I would have certainly challenged that condition.No problem for him but it was the first time I had seen it.
Equus said:
barryrs said:
I completed an application for a mates home office/cabin and was surprised to see a condition that prevented any visitors.
No problem for him but it was the first time I had seen it.
If the wording was as straightforward as that (ie. plain 'no visitors', not, 'no visitors associated with the business use of the building') then I would have certainly challenged that condition.No problem for him but it was the first time I had seen it.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
In simple terms: You were building under Permitted Development. The OP on this thread obtained Planning Permission.With PD, there are fixed rules that you must stay within; with Planning Permission you can do anything you want, provided you can persuade the Local Authority to permit it.
Jeremy-75qq8 said:
I am surprised that air Bnb can be considered incidental to the use of the property. My view is it isn’t.
isnt there a standard legal allowance for e.g renting out a room in your house...how is that different to air b&b - which is just a platform to facilitate that...
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