Turn your long garden into new homes

It can, and it can go either way. A smaller garden, a new neighbour behind you and a shared drive may reduce what some buyers will pay for your house, while others won’t mind. Against that, you receive money for the plot. The effect depends on your street, how much garden you keep and how well the new home is designed. Before you commit, ask a local estate agent or a RICS surveyor to give you an independent view of your house with and without the plot.

Not for the planning application itself. The council tells neighbours about it and they can comment, but the decision is the council’s. Their agreement does matter in some cases: if the access or services would cross their land, if a restrictive covenant on your title benefits them, or if the work falls under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. We check for all of these early, and we always suggest talking to neighbours before an application goes in.

No. Every route we offer is built around you keeping your house. You can sell us part of your garden, agree a sale that only goes ahead if planning is granted, give us an option, partner with us, or keep the land and have us build a new home on it for you. The only thing that changes is the land behind or beside your home, and how it changes is agreed in writing before anything happens.

Usually, yes. Most owners can stay put, but it’s fair to expect some disruption: deliveries, trades’ vans, noise during working hours and dust at certain stages. Where building traffic shares your drive, the council often requires a construction management plan setting out working hours, deliveries and parking. We agree access, hours and site boundaries with you before work starts so you know what each phase will involve.

From first conversation to moving in, it usually takes well over a year, and often longer. Survey and design typically take a few months. Councils normally aim to decide a planning application within eight weeks of validating it, but surveys, amendments and pre-commencement conditions can add time. The build itself depends on the design, ground conditions, utility connections and the weather. We give you a programme with each stage once the design is settled.

Yes. A new, separate home always needs planning permission. It isn’t permitted development, however big your garden is. You can apply for full permission with detailed drawings, or for outline permission first and the details, known as reserved matters, later. In England, permission in principle is another route for small schemes. An annexe used as part of your existing house is a different thing, but it can’t be sold, let or lived in as a separate home without the right permission.

If you’ve agreed a sale subject to planning and permission is refused, the contract doesn’t complete and you keep your land. After any refusal there are usually three choices: change the design to deal with the council’s reasons and apply again, appeal, or stop. Appeals go to the Planning Inspectorate in England and to Planning and Environment Decisions Wales in Wales, with strict deadlines. We’ll tell you honestly which option we think is worth pursuing.