Applying for Change of Use When Renovating and Extending

If you are renovating or extending a property where some or all of it hasn’t previously been used for residential purposes, then you will need to apply for what is called ‘change of use’ at the local planning office. This won’t affect the majority of extension builders, but all those who are considering renovating an old church or chapel, barn or agricultural building, or any other old non-residential building, will need to tackle this issue.

Introduction to ‘Change of Use’

Whether or not this is going to be a big problem for a specific case is very hard to say. Whether or not your change of use will be agreed depends completely on the rules in force where you are, the historical and architectural significance (if any) of the building and any specific restrictions arising from the local plan.

What we can do here is describe what a change of use application entails and the way that the planners will go about approving or rejecting it. Note that change of use applies to land as well as buildings. So if you are going to be extending onto land that, is currently agricultural, for example, you will need to apply for change of use before you can start.

As with most other bureaucratic processes to do with extension building, the change of use is dealt with by the local planning committee, under the guidance of the local planning office. The first step is to discover what use the building is currently registered for, and if there’s no registered use, get the planners to decide what it should be.

Categories of Use

There are a number of classes and sub-classes of use and the government’s planning portal can give a complete breakdown. The main categories are:

• A: Mainly shops, restaurants and pubs, high street offices.
• B: Industrial, storage and distribution, and other businesses.
• C: Hotels, residential buildings and domestic dwellings.
• D: Non-residential institutions and buildings for assembly and leisure.
• Sui Generis (‘unique’): anything that doesn’t fall in to one of the above four classes.

Some change of use is permitted within these classes and again the planning portal can list these for you. However none of them include change from classes A, B or C to class D, which is what you will want, so an application will be necessary whatever the current use.

Submitting the Application

Make the application to the local planning office with full details and reasons for the change. They will help with the precise process and the forms to fill in for their area. The planners will look at it with respect to national guidelines, the local plan and then the immediate area around the property.

But they will also take notice of general trends too. For example, in many areas of the UK, getting consent for change of use for a barn to a residential extension will not be a particular problem.

Trends in Development

But over the past decade or so planners have begun to refuse these in some rural and semi-rural areas as they consider that it is making it hard for jobs to be created or sustained. It is now therefore easier to get change of use to offices or light industrial spaces instead.

This is why it is so hard to give hard and fast rules as to what change of use might be acceptable in any given situation. While planners are happy to consult and advise you, the only way to find out for sure is to make that application.

A Minefield for Development Projects

One final point of note. If you are embarking on a development project and there is likely to be a change of use issue, make sure you put the property subject to all planning consents being granted. Then if those consents don’t come through, you can legally back out of the deal.

And if the property is only for sale unconditionally, i.e. the vendor will not accept a sale subject to those conditions, it normally means the vendor has tried and failed to obtain those consents. So get the barge-pole out, and steer well clear.