When purchasing a property, it’s not uncommon to explore the potential for renovation. You may love a location or certain features but find that a property is not entirely suited to your needs. You may be restricted by budget or simply want to explore ways to increase the return on your investment when buying a home – all valid reasons to consult a design and planning service for advice before completing on a purchase. We have talked before about offering our free, no obligation consultation service to prospective buyers (find out more here) but are often asked about applying for planning permission to build an extension before a sale is complete. Here we discuss the pros and cons, and how you can start the planning application process before owning a property.

At first glance it can seem incredibly risky to apply for planning permission before completion, however with the lengthy legal process involved in finalising your purchase it could save you valuable time. We always offer a no obligation, free consultation before you make any commitment to design and planning. You’ll be able to speak with our experts who can talk you through the realistic feasibility of a project, including timescales and budget. We follow up with a free quote and any additional information, such as case studies on our past projects, to help you make an informed decision about the potential of the property. Our team regularly host house tours where you are invited to see a completed renovation and speak in person with the design team and our recommended builder behind the work. This can be a great way to get the ball rolling whilst you await completion, without making any financial commitments. 

We completely understand the difficulties that can arise when purchasing property and often work with clients to discuss multiple potential homes. If a sale falls through or you find the property isn’t right for you, we’re always happy to start the consultation process again with a different address.

What happens if you do decide to proceed with design and planning before a purchase is complete? Often the process of refining the plans for your home will run in tangent with the finalising of the sale. We start by booking a measured survey where our designers can take detailed measurements and sit down with you to talk through design options. It’s our aim to help you visualise the space and experiment with different layouts and design options before we start producing plans. We often liaise with estate agents to gain access to the property as we can’t create plans without taking our own detailed and accurate measurements. We offer unlimited amendments to your plans, allowing you to make as many changes as you want before we produce a formal planning set. Once approved it takes approximately a week for us to create your planning set that will allow you to submit an application to your local authority. You can click here for more information on what you should expect from your architectural floorplans, or here to read more about what is needed for a planning application.

At Home Tales we stagger our design fee, meaning you do not have to commit to all the stages upfront. We offer separate fees for architectural design, planning applications and our building regulations packs. We itemise these costs in your quote, allowing you to budget and commit to the later stages only when you feel comfortable or when the sale is complete.   

Should you tell the current owner about your plans? If you commence with the design phase while the sale is on-going it’s very likely that the sale will have completed by the time we reach the planning stage. The architectural design phase takes some time. It takes us approximately 2 weeks to get the initial designs to you following the survey and then we have the amendment stage. Some of our clients give feedback very quickly and we get them into planning within 1-2 weeks. Most take some time to experiment with different design options and consider various options. For this reason, it’s common to spend some time in this stage. If you do reach planning before the sale is concluding, that’s ok. You can apply for planning on a property you don’t own. Although you don’t have to be the owner of a property to submit a full planning application, you will need to submit notice of your application to them. This could potentially cause issues as a seller might be concerned about a rejected application causing you to pull out of a sale. For that reason, it’s wise to speak with a planning expert about the feasibility of your ideas – we can offer advice based on planning requirements and restrictions, other properties in the area and our knowledge of the local authority. We can also talk through what would happen should your plans be rejected, including how we can support if an appeal is needed.

If you have any questions about renovating a home or submitting a planning application, get in touch with our friendly team today. You can call us on 0207 043 2378 or email us at hello@hometales.co.uk. You can also book a consult via our live diary here – make sure to include both your current address and the purchase address so we can offer advice tailored to you.