At SMART, we have many frequently asked questions about our garden rooms, so we are here to help and put your mind at ease! A common question is, can a garden room be attached to a house? Unfortunately, the answer is simply, no, this is something that we cannot do. Our garden rooms are designed and constructed to be standalone modular buildings within your garden. Let’s break down why below…

Understanding Permissions for your Garden Room

The good news is, at SMART, planning permission is not normally necessary when it comes to building your dream garden room. This is because most of our buildings fall under permitted development rights, with the height of our buildings being under 2.5 metres.

We also ensure that when designing and measuring out your garden room at our FREE site consultation, that our friendly and knowledgeable consultant will discuss any applicable regulations with you. For example; If your building is under 15 square metres internally, you can have it as close to a boundary as you like. If your building is between 15 square metres and 30 square metres internal flooring then it would need siting 1 metre away from any boundary to avoid building regs kicking in.

As you can see, this Belle Garden room is under 15 square metres, and therefore doesn’t need to be 1 metre away from the boundary.

When Planning Permission is needed for your Garden Room

Like mentioned above, planning permission is rarely needed, however, there are some cases where it is. We are going to explain where it’s needed and how we can help:

Most houses, even in conservation areas and areas of outstanding natural beauty (AONB) have permitted development rights. However, flats and listed buildings do not have permitted developmental rights, therefore planning permission is required.

At SMART, we also offer a high-line roof within our extra optional features, which you can add to your garden room. If this is something that you are interested in, then planning permission might be needed due to the high-line roof bringing the building above 2.5 metres externally.

Not to panic though! If any of these apply to you, then have no fear SMART are here for you. We offer planning services for customers who need it at a nominal administration fee on top of the application planning and site map fee. However, if you wish to, you can sort your planning permission externally.

Still not sure?

If you are still uncertain whether your garden room will need planning permission and won’t fall under building regulations, we can ease your mind by booking you in with a FREE site consultation. One of our consultants will visit you at your site, measure up, design your dream garden room on our configurator and discuss costs. This is where we can answer any questions you may have regarding planning permission and what you can and can’t do with your SMART building.

Check out our FAQ’s to find out more about how the SMART garden room journey works.