Question about planning permission of a converted attic as a bedroom

idayang

Hi everyone,

We are buying a house. In the advertisement it's a 4 bedroom semi detached house, actually the vendor use the converted attic as the fourth bedroom.

We doubt that the vendor does not have the planning permission to change the attic as a bedroom.We are wondering how much is the cost to apply the permission from local authority.

Many thanks!

athtrasna

In order for a room to be legally designated a bedroom it has to come up to fire safety standards. Converted attics rarely meet these due to the difficulty in providing approved fire exits.

idayang

Thank you!
The vendor promised to build an exit, can we get the permission after that?

athtrasna wrote: »

In order for a room to be legally designated a bedroom it has to come up to fire safety standards. Converted attics rarely meet these due to the difficulty in providing approved fire exits.

athtrasna

You will need to check the procedure with your local council. It will need to be inspected and certified afaik!

Gumbo

idayang wrote: »

Hi everyone,

We are buying a house. In the advertisement it's a 4 bedroom semi detached house, actually the vendor use the converted attic as the fourth bedroom.

We doubt that the vendor does not have the planning permission to change the attic as a bedroom.We are wondering how much is the cost to apply the permission from local authority.

Many thanks!

Planning is not the main issue here. Once planning has been granted for the converted space, if it can meet the building regulations for a habitable room then you can class it as a bedroom technically speaking.

From the building regulations, you are looking at :

Part A : the new floor is structurally designed to take the new loadings as the previous floor would have been for the attic space.

Part B : this is the hard bit. Fire Safety. You need a good stairs up to the attic level. You need to extend the fire alarm and detection system to the landing at attic level. You need to place a 30 minute fire door set from the attic landing into the new room, although this door can be at the base of the new stairs also.

You then need to convert all the other doors in the house to 20 minute fire doors by retro fitting the soft closers to them. You need to ensure the escape route from the new attic room ie. The stair case is enclosed in 30 minute fire resistance construction.

Then, in the actual attic room, you need an alternative means of escape that complies with TGDB, that can be in the form of a former window or a top hung velum or similar roof light. These have to placed in particular positions within particular dimensions from floor level internally and angled distance to the eaves externally.

Part F : you need to ventilate the new habitable room. There is a recommended room height triangle in the Technical guidance document Part F and it's a calculation of the area at 1.5m and a calculation of the are at 2.4m. But remember that it is a recommendation, not a requirement.

The list is not exhaustive, but should give you some guidance towards what you need doing. Any particular question, please ask away, I'll do my best to answer.