Two Storey extension under Permitted Development Rights

If you need more space in your home and want more upstairs space as well as extending your ground floor, you may still be able to extend under permitted development rights without going through a lengthy planning application process.

How big can your two storey extension be?

There are a number of limitations on a two storey extension under permitted development rights – while they do give many home owners a certain amount of freedom, it’s not a complete free for all!:

Extensions, including those already built, cannot exceed 50 per cent of the total area of land around the original house (defined as the house as it was when it was first built, or as it stood on 1 July 1948).
If you want to look at a two storey extension under permitted development rights, you must not extend beyond the rear wall of the original house by more than three metres.
Your planned two storey extension can’t be within seven metres of any boundary opposite the rear wall of the house.
The eaves height of a rear extension cannot be greater than three metres if it is within two metres of an adjoining boundary. In most cases, this effectively means that a two storey extension under permitted development rights cannot be any closer to the boundary than this two metre limit.
You can’t site your two storey extensions at the front of your house, or on any wall parallel to a highway.

What if my house is terraced?

Key permitted development benefits relate to detached houses and large semi-detached properties rather than terraces.

Permitted Development rights do extend to terraced houses, but in the majority of cases there isn’t a lot of benefit when considering a two storey extension as the two-metres-from-boundary rule tends to rule it out.

If you would like to talk to us about designing a two storey extension under Permitted Development rules, call Alan J Currall Architectural Services today on 01536 393505.