What … you’re saying? What? That goes against everything I know about the building codes and the regulations! Yes, you’re right, this is subject to some limitations. But how about the potential benefit!
Image courtesy of Metro Partitions
It’s definitely not as eye catching in a headline to say “Alterations don’t need a building permit provided you satisfy the criteria for exemptions in Item 4 of Schedule 8 to the Building Regulations 2006“. Even having qualified this it is still worthwhile knowing the effect of the successful application of these criteria.
It exempts from a building permit works like:
- non-structural internal alterations in houses e.g kitchen and bathroom renovations; and
- internal non-structural “cosmetic” alterations in non-domestic buildings (commercial, industrial, retail etc) that don’t change the use or the layout other than “moveable” furniture.
That’s still a pretty good get – let’s have a look at these criteria in more detail: (more…)