We have posted many times about the so-called ‘four year rule’ under which the creation of a new dwelling without planning permission becomes lawful after a period of four years.
We submit a lot of applications for certificates of lawfulness (or lawful development certificates) and have had a lot of success over the years. Click here for details of our biggest ever development of 39 flats (that was a big application!).
An interesting thing about this case is that we applied only for the use of the ground floor and top floor flats. There was also a flat in the middle floor, but we were not as confident in our evidence for that unit so decided to leave it for a later application. There is nothing to stop you establishing the lawfulness of different parts of a building at different times.
You may have heard that the four year rule has now been abolished. It is true that the former government’s Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 (known as LURA) got rid of the 4 year rule.
However, Regulation 5 of the Planning Act 2008 (Commencement No. 8) and Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2024 contain a transitional provision meaning that the abolition of the four-year rule will not apply where an unauthorised change of use to a dwelling occurred before 25 April 2024.
In other words, if you subdivided a house into flats (for example), you can still rely on the 4 year rule as long as that breach of planning permission happened before April 2024.
