Lawful Development Certificate in Ealing

Side extensions and the half-width rule

In Ealing, 50.3 per cent of households live in a house or bungalow, so side extensions are a frequent question. The Order's limit reads: Side extension: single storey, max 4 m high, max half the width of the original house.

The half-width test is measured against the original house, which trips people up when a garage has already been added. We draw the original footprint in a separate line weight so the case officer can see the sum at a glance. In a conservation area the right to a side extension is withdrawn altogether, and we confirm that before you commit to a design.

Rear and wraparound projects

Rear extensions are the other staple. The single-storey limit is: 3 m (attached) / 4 m (detached) beyond the original rear wall, single storey. Combined with a side addition, a wraparound can easily break the limit on one side while staying inside it on the other, so we test each elevation separately.

Domestic gardens made up 25.6 per cent of Ealing's land in the national land-use survey, so the curtilage rule often comes into play. The Order states: Buildings (other than the original house) may not cover more than 50% of the curtilage. When an outbuilding is already in the garden, we add its footprint to the total and show the percentage on the plan.

Flats, maisonettes and converted houses

Some large Ealing houses have been split into flats. The Order is plain on this: Householder permitted development (Sch 2 Part 1) does not apply to flats or buildings containing flats. A flat owner therefore needs an application for the extension, and the freeholder's consent is a separate matter.

If you are not sure whether your building counts as a house or as flats, send us the address and the date of conversion. We check the planning history on the council's search at https://pam.ealing.gov.uk, which usually settles it.

Showing the original house to Ealing officers

Every allowance in the Order is counted from the original house, meaning the building as first built or as it stood when modern planning control began. Older houses may have been altered more than once, so we gather the evidence in three steps: the earlier planning history on the council's online register, historic mapping for the footprint, and our own measured survey.

Where a past extension has no paper trail, we record it as existing and count it against your allowance. Doing this at the start avoids trouble later, when an officer finds the earlier work on old mapping and decides that the allowance is already used.

The result is a one-page summary at the front of the set that states the original footprint, what has been added since and what remains. It also gives you a plain record to hand to a buyer's solicitor when you sell.

Fee, timing and the drawings

The council's fee for a proposed-use certificate is: Half the normal planning fee (householder: £274). It goes to Ealing, separate from our fixed fee of £645 including VAT. The statutory decision period is 8 weeks.

The pack contains location and block plans plus existing and proposed floor plans, elevations and sections. We prepare it from a measured survey, and a second technologist checks it before submission. Should the officer ask for changes, we make them at no extra fee.

Other services and neighbouring boroughs

If the certificate route is closed, see our planning drawings in Ealing, or read building regulations drawings in Ealing for the technical stage that follows. The borough overview is architectural drawings in Ealing. Neighbouring councils have their own conservation area patterns: compare Hounslow and Brent.