Planning & Warrants
Planning permission and a building warrant are granted by the council, not your neighbour, but several situations still require your neighbour's formal agreement before work can start.
You do not need your neighbour's permission for planning purposes, but you may need their formal agreement for shared boundaries, shared drainage or a tenement back green held in common.
Planning permission and building warrants are decided by the council based on the application, not on a neighbour's objection alone — though neighbours are consulted and can object during a planning application.
A neighbour's agreement is required when work affects a shared boundary wall, a shared drain, or land or a back green held in common ownership, most commonly in tenement properties.
A neighbour can submit a formal objection during the planning consultation period, and the council must consider it, but an objection alone does not automatically block approval.
Objections are more likely to succeed where they raise a genuine planning issue — loss of light, overlooking or overshadowing — rather than a general preference against the work.
Overlooking and loss of privacy are valid planning considerations that the council will weigh, particularly for upper-floor or elevated conservatories and roof terraces.
This is rarely an issue for a standard single-storey rear conservatory, but becomes relevant for conservatories built on top of an existing extension or garage.
We flag any shared-title or common-ownership issue at survey stage and tell you what agreement, if any, is needed before design work proceeds.
