Non material amendments

[Vijay]

Following on from my post about adding a pedestrian door to my garage https://forum.buildhub.org.uk/topic/7296-should-i-add-an-external-pedestrian-garage-door/?tab=comments#comment-124526

What is involved with applying for a non material amendment? Would I need to get new drawings done for it?

 

I'm happy to speak to planning but past experience has been pretty much a block wall in terms of help.

[Triassic]

The only thing I know is that according to our planning officer it costs £234 !

[Vijay]

per change?

[Hecateh]

8 minutes ago, Vijay said:

per change?

per submission I am pretty sure

 

[PeterW]

It’s per submission so worth getting them all in as one ..! I did a about 14 from memory on one - and a lot were far from non-material ..!! 

[epsilonGreedy]

7 hours ago, Vijay said:

What is involved with applying for a non material amendment? Would I need to get new drawings done for it?

 

 

I am making more substantial changes to my garage which the planning office say fall just inside a non material amendment rather than a full amendment. They want a proper scaled drawing showing the changes which means a trip back to the architectural technologist.

 

I am in a conservation area and even the door colour is a specified planning condition. In your position I would just build the door in and deal with the consequences if any downstream. Will anyone be motivated to object to the extra door, would the planning office feel motivated to initiate an enforcement action, they could get mildly stroppy and demand a retrospective non material amendment and in the worst case just hang on to 120 facing bricks so you can brick it up as a last resort.

 

 

[Temp]

+1

 

Adding a door or window is normally permitted development once a house is finished. So they are very unlikely to issue an enforcement notice if they discover a door not on your plans. What would be the point? You could comply with the enforcement notice by bricking it up then immediately unbrick it under permitted development.

[Thedreamer]

I went from this:

 

 

To this via a non material varation. Luckly enough they started charging for NMVs a few weeks later, so cost me nil in planning fees.

 

 

[Triassic]

I recently asked about a non material amendment to save £7,000, but apparently it was unlikely to be accepted, as cost does not come into these things!

[Ferdinand]

7 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

I went from this:

 

 

To this via a non material varation. Luckly enough they started charging for NMVs a few weeks later, so cost me nil in planning fees.

 

 

 

They would like that .. it is smaller and you can see fewer neighbours from upstairs :-).

 

F

[Vijay]

Cheers guys. I assume that's why the A.T suggested doing them all at once later on, as you may change things along the way - otherwise cost a fortune in drawings and fees.

 

so far it's:

 

Enlarge the rear garage door from 1810 to 2500.

Add a pedestrian door to the garage.

Contemplating adding windows to the hall alcoves

Contemplating changing a window to a door in the gym area as I had an idea to add a garden room in the future

 

Getting a new drawing done is a pain (but understandable) as my track record with any sort of architect has felt like pulling teeth at times.

 

 

[the_r_sole]

.

Edited September 26, 2019 by the_r_sole

[newhome]

Just a note of caution in relation to the VAT reclaim. HMRC have refused reclaims where the build doesn’t tie in with the approved plans so ensure that what you have built matches what your PP says well before you send the VAT claim. People have obtained retrospective approvals for the changed PP but have still been refused the VAT reclaim as it has been decreed that the build wasn’t lawful at the point of submission. For the cases noted in the tribunal (these appeals failed) they were quite big variations in what was built but it’s best to bear this in mind so as not to give HMRC any chance to refuse the claim. 

[Bitpipe]

1 hour ago, Vijay said:

Cheers guys. I assume that's why the A.T suggested doing them all at once later on, as you may change things along the way - otherwise cost a fortune in drawings and fees.

 

so far it's:

 

Enlarge the rear garage door from 1810 to 2500.

Add a pedestrian door to the garage.

Contemplating adding windows to the hall alcoves

Contemplating changing a window to a door in the gym area as I had an idea to add a garden room in the future

 

Getting a new drawing done is a pain (but understandable) as my track record with any sort of architect has felt like pulling teeth at times.

 

 

 

I did two NMAs - one to increase front elevation window sizes from 1000mm square to 1200 square (doubt they would have noticed) add to solar PV to rear and tweak rear Velux (debatable if I even needed permission for this). The second was to add Solar PV to the front.

 

Both times I did my own drawings - was quite simple change so I just took a grab of the architect's drawings* from the PDF)and stuck them into a powerpoint where I cut, paste & tweaked the new details - took a bit of fiddling to get the scale correct (original go was rejected for this reason) but got there second go.

 

Fee was close to £200 and that was in 2015.

 

NMA one was accepted, two was rejected as it was not considered 'non material' as it introduced a new element to the street facing elevation. They also noted that PV is covered by PD provided it meets sensible criteria. 

 

So, long story short, unless it's a big redesign (in which case debatable it's a NMA) you may be able to hack it together yourself and save any architect fees.

 

*later in the project, I persuaded the architect to give me the DWG (well, I persuaded him so send it to the TF manufacturer and the SE firm, who sent it back to me  ) - would have been easy enough to make the changes there using DraftSight (free and reasonably easy to use).

 

 

[Tony K]

11 hours ago, Vijay said:

Cheers guys. I assume that's why the A.T suggested doing them all at once later on, as you may change things along the way - otherwise cost a fortune in drawings and fees.

 

so far it's:

 

Enlarge the rear garage door from 1810 to 2500.

Add a pedestrian door to the garage.

Contemplating adding windows to the hall alcoves

Contemplating changing a window to a door in the gym area as I had an idea to add a garden room in the future

 

Getting a new drawing done is a pain (but understandable) as my track record with any sort of architect has felt like pulling teeth at times.

 

 

 

If it helps, as an LPA planner who works in enforcement I would advise you that if you stray from your approved plans in any way then you are exposing yourself to risk. Even if the chances are that nothing ever comes from it, you need to be aware that the risk exists. 

 

There are very few projects of any type which don't evolve at all between the planning application stage and finishing on site, and that's the simple reality. At the same time, the value of putting a set of drawings in when seeking permission is reduced if we don't then stick to those plans when we build, increasingly so the greater the differences between what we build and what we asked for permission to build. 

 

The idea that you should sweep all the minor changes up into one accurate plan is correct, but as best you can you should do that before you build, just in case the Council don't approve those changes. 

[epsilonGreedy]

8 hours ago, Tony K said:

If it helps, as an LPA planner who works in enforcement I would advise you that if you stray from your approved plans in any way then you are exposing yourself to risk.

 

 

Risks can be quantified and calibrated, pro builders do this all the time.

 

I am following the rules as a first time self builder in a conservation area because I know my build will be subject to an extra level of scrutiny.

 

Reading previous posts in this forum leads me to understand that receipt of an enforcement order is not equivalent to a judge handing down a conviction, it is just a formal request to make a change. Not complying with an enforcement order is the point at which a law is broken.

[Tony K]

2 hours ago, epsilonGreedy said:

 

Risks can be quantified and calibrated, pro builders do this all the time.

 

I am following the rules as a first time self builder in a conservation area because I know my build will be subject to an extra level of scrutiny.

 

Reading previous posts in this forum leads me to understand that receipt of an enforcement order is not equivalent to a judge handing down a conviction, it is just a formal request to make a change. Not complying with an enforcement order is the point at which a law is broken.

 

Yep, everything you have said is correct and it sounds like you are factoring in the correct things when assessing risk (though in every setting there are a great many unknowns - you may have a local busybody in any neighbourhood who likes reporting things for instance, and whilst Councils do not like these people, they can't ignore them either, and they tend to crop up were you least expect them).

 

If faced with a decision as to whether to make a change to your plans without reverting back to the planning dept, the factor you have perhaps to attach most weight to in my opinion is: how serious would it be for me if I ended up having to change this back to match the original plans? Whilst you are quite right that an enforcement notice is not a big deal in itself (though it can upset lenders and buyers a bit), it's more the cost of doing what the notice asks of you that can be the hard bit. 

 

If you are thinking of adding a door instead of a window, you may decide to proceed without going back to the planners as the cost of having to change it back is not too bad if the worst should ever come to the worst. I'd probably do that myself. If you find that your roof ridge needs to creep up a bit on the other hand, you are in a different area altogether. The cost of changing that later if you had to doesn't bear thinking about, so whatever you do, go to the planners first. 

[Triassic]

 

What's the position regarding fenestration?

 

I'm reviewing window suppliers quotes and a couple of potential suppliers have suggested, what the architect has drawn, is not technically possible and have suggested alternatives that alter the number and position of the window stiles. So rather than having three panes of glass, I'd have two panes of glass. Would this need to be approved by the planner?

Edited October 16, 2018 by Triassic

[newhome]

1 hour ago, Triassic said:

 

What's the position regarding fenestration?

 

I'm reviewing window suppliers quotes and a couple of potential suppliers have suggested, what the architect has drawn, is not technically possible and have suggested alternatives that alter the number and position of the window stiles. So rather than having three panes of glass, I'd have two panes of glass. Would this need to be approved by the planner?

 

Ours were really fussy about fenestration (we added a window to balance the look). We also wanted a bigger window in the front and they told us that it would need a whole new planning application so we left that as we didn’t want to start from scratch. 

[Tony K]

3 hours ago, Triassic said:

 

What's the position regarding fenestration?

 

I'm reviewing window suppliers quotes and a couple of potential suppliers have suggested, what the architect has drawn, is not technically possible and have suggested alternatives that alter the number and position of the window stiles. So rather than having three panes of glass, I'd have two panes of glass. Would this need to be approved by the planner?

 

Depends entirely on the context. Conservation area? Visible elevation in a key part of the street? If so then possibly you need to go to the planners. Otherwise probably not, but it's always a matter of fact and degree based on the exact circumstances of the case. 

 

Check the conditions of your permission. If the council has imposed conditions relating to Windows then they are probably a big deal, as would be any changes to them. Otherwise probably not. 

[Vijay]

I'm not trying to get anything past planning, I just wish they were more helpful. Sadly my experience with them is they won't even have a friendly chat without money, plans and a long wait until they decide. I will call planning on Friday and see what they say, hopefully I'll be surprised

[epsilonGreedy]

1 hour ago, Vijay said:

I'm not trying to get anything past planning, I just wish they were more helpful. Sadly my experience with them is they won't even have a friendly chat without money, plans and a long wait until they decide. I will call planning on Friday and see what they say, hopefully I'll be surprised

 

 

My council handle NMAs on a 28 day decision target.

 

Have you tried turning up in person? My council run a manned duty desk on a first come first served basis and I usually arrive with Swmbo to create the impression of starry eyed first time self builders.

[Vijay]

Last time I went to discuss a pre-app, they wouldn't let me in the building until they'd confirmed the appointment lol

[Tony K]

13 hours ago, Vijay said:

Last time I went to discuss a pre-app, they wouldn't let me in the building until they'd confirmed the appointment lol

 

It's very frustrating but without making any wider or political point, this is what austerity looks like I'm afraid. 

[Vijay]

If for example there were 5 things that I wanted to change with a NMA and planning didn't approve one of them, would the whole NMA be knocked back or do they split it up?