"BillR" wrote in message
...
PoP wrote:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 21:10:48 -0000, "Tony Gent"
wrote:
I have a garage that my car will not fit in, so I am thinking of
taking the up n over door off and replacing it with tongue and
groove. Then putting a house style front door in and making a small
work area.
My question is are there any planning regulation that will stop me
from doing this. Can my neighbour complain to the council etc.
If the house was built in the recent past (say, the last 25 years or
so) then the original builder may have put a clause on the property
that any work which changes the presentation or design of the property
must be okay'd by them first. This can even extend to changing the
colour of the windows and eaves. You pay the builder a small fee to
consider your plans, and then they rubber stamp it (or not, as the
case may be).
I know we've got such a clause on our property which is about 8 years
old. House was built by Martin Grant Homes and ISTR the fee was £25.
Well I live in MG house and they told me they are not interested in these
covenants when the houses are more than 10 years old poss even earlier if
they are not doing any more development in the area.
The LA will not enforce them either, its down to other householders to
bring
a civil action.
So all in all they are a waste of time. You can pretty well ignore them
with
impunity as most people round here seem to.
However, if you change a garage to a habitable room as many of my
neighbours have done, then building control is very interested in
insulation
to floor etc.
They usually want the garage floor and wall up to a foot or so painted with
a couple of coats of Synthaseal.
The cost can be non-trivial. This is what the neighbours might
make the LA aware of..
Also someone near here tried to run a buisness in his converted garage and
fell foul of the planning regs...
What is all this the government is on about then, about working from home,
etc, etc. I can understand if the man was holding large stocks or having 6
cars permanently parked outside.
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