Change of residential use (permissions)

​Planning permission

You will need planning permission to change your home in any of the following ways:

• change of use of a building previously used as a single dwelling house to 2 or more separate dwelling houses or flats
• change of use of 2 or more premises previously used as 2 separate dwelling houses or flats to a single dwelling house 
• change of use of a building or part of a building previously used as a dwelling house for short term holiday lettings 
• change of use to create a time sharing scheme in respect of building on the land
• change of use of a non-domestic building to domestic use

Building permission

You will need building permission if you want to change the use of a building:

• to a house
• to a flat
• the building, which contains at least 1 dwelling, contains a greater or lesser number of dwellings than it did previously

When a material change of use takes place, the building, or affected part, may need to be upgraded to satisfy certain important parts of the building bye-laws, including:

• fire safety
• ventilation provision
• energy conservation
• structure
• weather resistance
• fire spread 
• sound insulation

To change the use of a building for commercial purposes refer to our commercial and other development section.

Commercial and other development
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