Guides
Planning, building and contracts, explained
Each guide answers one question from the law itself, cites the section it rests on and says when it was last checked. England only. How we write these guides.
Or choose a topic to see its guides.
Do I need planning permission?
Extensions, lofts and dormers, garden rooms and annexes, fences and driveways, solar panels, heat pumps and EV chargers, windows and doors, and the rules for flats.
Extensions
- Do you need planning permission for a rear extension?
- Can you build a 6 or 8 metre rear extension without planning permission?
- Do you need planning permission for a side or wraparound extension?
- Can you add an extra storey to your house without planning permission?
- Do you need planning permission for a loft conversion or dormer?
- Do you need planning permission for a porch?
- Do you need planning permission for a basement?
- Do you need planning permission to convert a garage?
In the garden
- Do you need planning permission for a garden room?
- Do you need planning permission for a granny annexe?
- Do you need planning permission for decking or a hot tub?
- Do you need planning permission for a fence or wall?
- Do you need planning permission for a driveway?
- Do you need planning permission for a dropped kerb?
- Do you need planning permission for a balcony or roof terrace?
Energy and services
Walls, windows and roofs
Planning and permitted development
How permitted development works and where it is taken away, reading a planning history, pre-application advice, fees and timescales, lawful development certificates, refusals and enforcement.
How permitted development works
Applying, and certainty
Conservation areas and listed buildings
Listed building consent, buying a listed building with unauthorised works, what a conservation area changes, and new windows, doors, solar panels and heat pumps on heritage homes.
Listed buildings
Conservation areas
Local rules by area
Conservation areas, article 4 directions, protected landscapes and CIL rates in Bristol, Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, and Brighton and Hove.
Council areas
- Planning permission and building work in Bristol: what you need to know
- Planning permission and building work in Bath and North East Somerset: what you need to know
- Planning permission and building work in North Somerset: what you need to know
- Planning permission and building work in South Gloucestershire: what you need to know
- Planning permission and building work in Brighton and Hove: what you need to know
Building Regulations
Whether your work needs approval, full plans or a building notice, council or private building control, the two principal designer roles, and missing completion certificates.
Approval
The principal designer
Party walls
When the Party Wall Act applies, the 3 metre and 6 metre rules, how much notice to give, what happens when a neighbour does not reply, and who pays the surveyors.
Does the Act apply?
Notices
Community Infrastructure Levy
Whether the levy applies to an extension or a self-built home, how exemptions are claimed and how they are lost, and 2026 rates in the South West, Brighton and London.
Extensions and annexes
Your team and the process
Who designs and builds an extension, when you need a structural engineer or a quantity surveyor, measured surveys, the RIBA stages, and how long each stage takes.
Costs and value
What a cost plan contains, the fees besides the build, VAT on building work, how much contingency to allow, whether an extension adds value, and whether to extend or move.
Tendering and contracts
Traditional or design and build, which building contract to use, tendering and schedules of works, what a contract administrator does, paying the builder, and practical completion.