Planning permission needed?

[MaggieMay]

We bought a small village house in 1996 in the South of France which had two attic rooms on the 2nd floor (they had been plastered and had rough tiles on the floor) and we made them into two bedrooms.  I am now wondering whether we should have obtained planning permission for change of use from storage to bedrooms and, if so, should we apply for retrospective permission?  Any advice welcome.

[Gardian]

Nobody has replied so far, so I'll have a go at an answer!

First of all, I'd guess that 90% of French people would consider the need to apply for any forn of permission as totally unnecessary! I've had a look at the Permis de Construire rules (just Google it and you'll get the Govt website up) and it doesn't seem that you'd ever have needed to go that far. What you did was a change of use of existing rooms with no increase to the surface area.

I rather feel that what you did fell more in to the area of a DdT (see below) - it was of "faible importance".

Two options:

• Ask at the Mairie - the strong chance is that they'll tell you to forget about it or worst case complete a retrospective DdT.

• Ignore it and put the whole thing out of your mind.

There is the possibility that any formalisation of the work you carried out would lead to a re-evaluation of the property's valeur locative, which in turn would increase your Tax d'Habitation bill, so that probably makes it more likely that you'd be required to formalise things.

Someone else may be able to be more definitive, but I hope that helps as a starter.

 

Déclaration préalable de travaux

Mise à jour le 23.03.2012 - Direction de l'information légale et administrative (Premier ministre)

Principe

La déclaration préalable est un acte administratif qui donne les moyens à l'administration de vérifier qu'un projet de construction respecte bien les règles d'urbanisme en vigueur. Elle est généralement exigée pour la réalisation d'aménagement de faible importance.

• Travaux concernés

• Démarche

• Instruction de la demande

• Décisions de la mairie

• Services en ligne et formulaires

• Où s'adresser ?

• Références

Travaux concernés

Une déclaration préalable est notamment exigée pour les travaux suivants réalisés sur une construction existante :

• travaux qui créent entre 5 m² ou 20 m² de surface de plancher ou d'emprise au sol. Le seuil de 20 m² est porté à 40 m² si la construction est située dans une zone urbaine d'une commune couverte par un plan local d'urbanisme (PLU) ou un document assimilé (par exemple, un plan d'occupation des sols). Toutefois, entre 20 et 40 m² de surface de plancher ou d'emprise au sol, un permis de construire est exigé si, après réalisation, la surface ou l'emprise totale de la construction dépasse 170 m²,

• travaux de ravalement ou travaux modifiant l'aspect extérieur d'un bâtiment,

• travaux changeant la destination d'un bâtiment (par exemple, transformation d'un local commercial en local d'habitation) même lorsque celle-ci n'implique pas de travaux.

[Cendrillon]

"There is the possibility that any formalisation of the work you carried

out would lead to a re-evaluation of the property's valeur locative,

which in turn would increase your Tax d'Habitation bill, so that

probably makes it more likely that you'd be required to formalise

things."

I can confirm that yes, once you declare the changes there is usually an increase in tax d'hab.

[woolybanana]

MaggieMay, you said the two rooms were for storage but to someone else they could have been bedrooms. All you have done is tarted up a couple of rooms in your house. This is nothing to do with making structural changes or whatever. Do not bother to declare anything as there has been no change that matters - habitable space is habitable space.

Relax and enjoy the sun, hopefully.

[Loiseau]

Would it depend on whether you have added windows where there were none before?

Angela

[idun]

I have friends who have just converted 'rooms/spaces' to proper rooms.

I reckon that their habitable space in their property officially is a about half of that it should be, so it'll be well over now.

It'll be OK until there is a controle and then I suppose that they will have to pay up. They know that.

We would have needed to put windows in the loft if we had converted that space and then we wouldn't have been allowed to, then. And maybe not now either. We wouldn't have put windows in without permission as there were too many who would have 'told' on us.

[nomoss]

If you did create extra living space, only that with a headroom of more than 1m80 would be considered as such.

 

 

[Chancer]

I converted my grenier into two self contained flats without making a formal application as it would have needed to be done by an architect as it took the habitable area over 170m2. That is not to say that it was done in secret, my method is to hide something in plain view, the Mairie is aware and the Maire adjoint and second adjoint have both been shown around the chantier and chose not to mention the 8 veluxes that have been added.

My habitable area initially went up to 270m2 and following negotiations with the hôtel des impôts it was reduced to 37m2 (my flat) with the chantier excluded, as the flats are being finished they are declared to the hôtel des impôts and the habitable area and of course my taxes increase each time.

It would appear that the only people concerned about the 170m2 and the need for an architect rule are the mairies when one deposes a permis de construire.

[Chancer]

I should add that if your grenier had floorboards, an access by stairs and had been correctly declared beforehand (mine hadnt) then it will already be counted as a habitable area on the fichier fonçière.

Under those circumstances (and how would you know that it hadnt been declared?) then converting it to a bedroom or even a flat would not in my opinion require any declaration unless veluxes or dormer windows are added.

[MaggieMay]

Many thanks for your very informative reply.  I did not change anything except paint the walls so I don't think I am going to say anything.  If there are repercussions in the future, so be it!  I shall go off and enjoy the sun.

MaggieMay