When I bought my house in France, I was, I admit clueless about – well, almost anything to do with buying a house in France. But the process of buying is actually fairly simple. The house was very cheap, like, under £75,000 cheap. And it was big, a long farmhouse in the beautiful countryside of the Seven Valleys in Pas-de-Calais northern France. It needed a lot of work. In fact 20 years later, we’re still renovating – we like to do it all ourselves. We’ve learned the skills needed for a major renovation from plumbing to bricklaying and everything in between. And one of the first jobs we planned was an extension to the kitchen. At the back of the house overlooking the garden and fields, the existing kitchen was narrow, dark and impractical, we wanted to add a small glass roofed extension, very simple, basically a 5m by 3m box. And I admit, I had no idea how to get planning permission in France.
We asked at the town hall if it was ok to add the extension. Sure they said, go ahead and they stamped a form with their official stamp. Wow, we thought, that’s easy. Then, added the mayor – oh yes, by the way, get permission from the DDT (Direction Départementale des Territoires).
We researched – the DDT were in the local ‘big town.’ They required various bits of paper including the cadastral map which shows the footprint of a property within its surroundings, plans for the extension and a few more bits and pieces. Nothing that worried us, it was after all a very simple extension. We bought some CAD software, we created professional looking drawings, took photos, made copious notes of what we wanted to do including the colour of the paint for the door. We took everything to the DDT, they accepted everything, smiled in a way that made us think we’d done well, and said they’d be in touch.
They were in touch a few weeks later. They needed more details. We supplied them.
A couple of months later – the same thing. We went back and forth, for more than two years. We had no idea what to do. Even with my reasonably good French I just couldn’t understand what we were doing wrong.
In the mayor’s office one day, we mentioned to his assistant that we were having trouble with the permission to build the extension. “Get an architect to submit the forms” she said quietly.
We were sceptical. Our plans were really professional. What could an architect do that we couldn’t? And besides, my French language skills were ok, but not great, so we were very worried about how we’d communicate what we wanted. But we were desperate. We spoke to an architect, he gave up trying to understand what we wanted on the phone and came to the house, went through our paperwork, measured things, wrote notes, redrew the plans, re-submitted and a week later contacted us, informed us why we had an issue, sorted it out and within two months we had planning permission granted.
The fact is when you’re dealing with official planning permission it boils down to having the right level of knowledge for what those granting permission need in order to satisfy themselves that they are correct to grant permission. And it’s not always clear what’s missing, or what needs to be added to make them happy. In our case, the cadastral plans differed from the plans we submitted because a previous owner had modified the building without permission.
The architect created plans for what we had (which were different to the plans we’d been given by the notaire when we bought it), applied for retrospective planning, got that granted, and then received immediate permission for the new extension. And yes my kitchen is lovely and light now!
Restrospective planning in France
My experience of buying a property where changes have been made without permission is not uncommon. The notaire who handled the buying process on our behalf did not pick up on the issue, and we had no idea whatsoever. Normally when this happens the problem only comes to light when you either need planning permission like us, or you come to sell and need to provide a planning permission certificate for works carried out if requested.
French Plans, the English-speaking architects in France, have helped many people to deal with retrospective planning permits. “It’s not at all unusual to find you have a property that has extra rooms that have never been declared, especially with older properties – always check the cadastral map against what you see before you. If there are discrepancies, you need to check them out” says architect Tom Easdown. “Our team at French Plans have lots of experience in sorting these issues out – before you buy, you can make it a condition of buying that this is resolved, but we can also help you sort it out if you’ve already bought the property. It’s not unlike the process for planning permission though we sometimes need to be creative if there are no before drawings.”
Planning permission in France
If you want to make modifications to a building from adding space to modifying living space for instance changing an attic into a bedroom – check the rules carefully, and get advice. There have been instances where homeowners carried out work without permission and have been made to return the property to its original condition.
Always check what planning permission is required – some zones have stringent planning restrictions in place, for example what colours can be used to paint the shutters of houses. Sometimes the language used in planning applications is very technical and hard to understand even if you do speak French, so having bilingual support from a team like French Plans can reduce the stress of trying to understand what you can and can’t do.
If you make modifications, there may need to be an amendment to your property tax, and you don’t want to be hit with a retrospective tax bill.
Tom at French Plans says “If the project is within the scope of the relevant planning policy it’s rare to be turned down for planning permission if you get the application right and help the planners to help you. That’s where we come in. We know what you want – and we know what they want. We pull everything together, we can help you every inch of the way, from taking your ideas and turning them into plans that will be acceptable so that you get the changes you want in a timely way and without the worry.”
Tom – I wish I had known you when I first started, it would have saved us a lot of stress!
Find out more and get help with all your property design and planning needs at frenchplans.com
