Certificates of lawfulness for a rooflight

Two certificates, two sections of the 1990 Act

The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provides for two, and they answer different questions.

Section 192 gives a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use or development. You describe work you have not yet carried out, and the council determines whether it would be lawful without planning permission. This is the one most rooflight owners want.

Section 191 gives a certificate of lawfulness of existing use or development. The work is already there, and the council determines whether it is now lawful, either because it always was or because it has become immune from enforcement through the passage of time.

The forms differ, the fees differ, the evidence differs and the arguments differ. Applying under the wrong section wastes eight weeks, so establish first whether the rooflight is proposed or installed.

A determination of law, not a grant of anything

The distinction sounds academic and it changes everything about how the application is handled.

On a planning application the officer weighs the development plan and material considerations and forms a judgement. On a certificate application there is no judgement to form. The question is whether, on the facts and the law, the development falls within the rights already granted by the General Permitted Development Order 2015. Whether it looks good, whether a neighbour dislikes it, whether the conservation officer would have preferred a different unit: none of that is relevant and none of it can lawfully be taken into account.

It follows that there is no statutory requirement to publicise a certificate application or to invite neighbour representations, because there is nothing for a representation to bear on. Some authorities notify the parish anyway. It does not change the test.

The burden of proof sits with you

The council does not have to disprove your case. You have to make it, and the standard is the balance of probabilities.

Where the applicant’s own evidence is precise, unambiguous and uncontradicted by anything the council holds, it can be enough on its own. Where it is vague, or where the planning history says something different, the application fails. That is a lower bar than people fear and a higher one than a covering letter saying the work is permitted development.

Precision is what carries it. Not “the rooflight will sit close to the roof surface” but a measured figure in millimetres, taken perpendicular to the plane of the existing slope, supported by the manufacturer’s published projection for the named model and the flashing kit.

When a proposed certificate earns its place

Most rooflights do not need one. Permitted development is a grant of permission, not a provisional one, and a compliant unit on a rear slope of an undesignated house is lawful whether or not anybody certifies it.

Five situations where it is worth the fee and the eight weeks.

• A sale is in prospect. A buyer’s solicitor asks what consent the rooflight had. A certificate answers it in one document and ends the enquiry.
• The planning history is complicated. Conversions, previous permissions with conditions attached, or a property formed from a larger building.
• There is doubt about whether rights were removed. A possible Article 4 direction, or a condition on an old permission stripping Part 1.
• The property is unusual. A building that may or may not be a dwellinghouse for these purposes, an annexe, or a former agricultural building.
• The proposal sits close to a limit. A domed unit on a kerb where the 150mm projection is genuinely arguable rather than obviously satisfied.

When the rooflight is already in the roof

An existing certificate under section 191 is a different exercise, and there are two distinct ways of winning it.

The first is that the work was lawful when it was done, because it fell inside permitted development. Here the age of the installation is beside the point and the argument is the same as for a proposed certificate, made retrospectively.

The second is that the work was a breach of planning control but has become immune from enforcement because the relevant period has run. Here you are not arguing that it was ever permitted. You are arguing that the council can no longer do anything about it, which produces exactly the same certificate.

Both routes end in a document a solicitor accepts. The evidential work is entirely different.

Immunity periods, and the change that took effect in 2024

The enforcement time limits in England changed, and which regime applies to your rooflight depends on when it was finished.

The ten year limit was brought in by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and applies to breaches in England from that date. Work already immune under the old four year rule does not lose that immunity, so a rooflight installed without permission in 2015 and completed then is beyond enforcement and stays beyond it.

Two cautions. Immunity is from enforcement of planning control only, and it does nothing at all about listed building consent, where no time limit runs and the position is criminal rather than civil. And the clock runs from substantial completion of the operation, which for a rooflight means the installation being finished, not the day the unit was ordered.

What goes into an application for proposed work

Short, factual and specific. The council is being asked a technical question and the submission should read like the answer to one.

A location plan and a block plan at the usual scales. Existing and proposed roof plans and elevations showing the unit in position. A section through the opening, drawn perpendicular to the plane of the slope, dimensioning the projection above that plane. The unit named in full: manufacturer, model, external dimensions, finish, and the flashing kit, with the manufacturer’s technical sheet attached.

Then a short statement setting out, condition by condition, why Class C is satisfied: the projection figure against the 150mm limit, the head of the unit against the highest part of the existing roof, whether the slope is a side elevation and if so how the obscure glazing and 1.7 metre conditions are met, and confirmation that the building is a dwellinghouse rather than a flat or maisonette. Our page on permitted development limits sets out each of those conditions in full.

Proving the date on a rooflight already there

For a section 191 application the whole case is usually the date, and the evidence needs to be capable of standing up if challenged.

A statutory declaration or sworn statement from the person who commissioned or carried out the work, giving dates. Dated invoices from the supplier or the installer. Building Control records, if the work was notified. Dated photographs, including family photographs that happen to show the roof, which are often the most convincing thing available.

Then the corroborating material: aerial imagery from dated surveys, estate agents’ particulars and photographs from a previous sale, and neighbours’ statements. Council tax and utility records occasionally help fix a date of occupation for a converted loft.

What does not work is a recollection expressed as “about ten years ago”. That is exactly the vagueness that produces a refusal, particularly where the true date sits close to the boundary between the four year and the ten year regimes.

The description on the certificate is the whole of what is certified

A certificate covers the development described in it, and nothing else.

Grant a certificate for one 780 by 1180mm centre pivot unit in a stated position on the rear slope, and that is what is lawful. Fit a larger unit, fit it in a different position, or fit two, and the certificate does not cover any of it. There is no tolerance built in and there is no discretion to read it generously.

So the description you submit should match the installation you actually intend, with dimensions and position pinned to the drawings. Where the unit might change, name the specification rather than a single model number, and be aware that the council will describe what you asked about, not what you meant.

Where a certificate for proposed work has been granted, the lawfulness is conclusively presumed provided the development is carried out as described and nothing changes in the planning position before it is begun. That last point matters: an Article 4 direction made after the certificate but before the work starts can undo it.

How it is decided, and how long it takes

The statutory period is eight weeks, the same as a householder application. Straightforward certificate applications are frequently decided faster, because there is no consultation stage and no design assessment.

The decision is made by officers under delegated powers. Certificate applications essentially never go to committee, since there is nothing for members to exercise judgement about.

A fee is payable, set by the same national regulations that set application fees, and it is charged differently for the existing and proposed types. Councils publish the current figures and they change, so check the authority’s page rather than relying on a number in an article. Which authority that is depends on your address rather than your postal town, as our page on the planning authorities across the radius explains.

If the certificate is refused

A refusal tells you something valuable, which is that you needed permission and did not know it. Painful, and better learned before the work than after.

There is a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate against a refusal, with a six month window from the date of the decision, and the appeal is decided on the same legal test rather than on planning merits. It is a good route where the disagreement is genuinely about the interpretation of a condition in the Order, and a poor one where the council has simply found a fact you cannot displace.

The alternative is to accept the finding and apply for planning permission instead. On a proposed rooflight that is usually the sensible course, and it costs a further cycle rather than the whole project.

Be aware that a refusal is a public record on the planning portal, searchable by address. On a property where a sale is coming, an unsuccessful certificate application can be worse than no application at all, which is an argument for getting the evidence right before submitting rather than trying it and seeing.

What a buyer’s solicitor is actually looking for

Conveyancing enquiries on a rooflight run to two questions. Was planning permission needed, and if so was it obtained. Was the work notified under the Building Regulations, and where is the certificate.

A certificate of lawfulness answers the first question completely and answers nothing about the second. The two documents go together in the file and neither substitutes for the other.

Where no certificate exists and the rooflight is old, a solicitor may accept evidence of age instead. Where the rooflight is recent, or where the property is a flat, or where a direction may apply, expect the enquiry to stick until something formal is produced.

Indemnity policies, and the enquiry that destroys them

The common alternative offered in a transaction is an indemnity policy, which insures against the council taking enforcement action rather than resolving whether it could.

Insurers underwrite these on the basis that nobody has drawn the council’s attention to the property. Almost every policy is voided by an approach to the local planning authority about the matter insured, which includes making a certificate application.

The practical consequence is that you choose one route or the other, and you choose before contacting the council. A certificate is the better outcome where the case is strong, because it resolves the position permanently and travels with the property. An indemnity is the pragmatic answer where the case is weak, the work is old, and a transaction is under time pressure. Take the advice of the conveyancer, and do not telephone the council to ask a friendly question in the middle of it.

It says nothing about Building Regulations

Certificates deal with planning control. Building Regulations are a separate regime, with a separate submission, a separate inspection and a separate completion certificate, and a rooflight inside every permitted development limit is still notifiable work with a thermal standard to meet.

Holding a certificate of lawfulness and no Building Regulations completion certificate leaves half the paperwork missing, and it is the half a surveyor is more likely to notice. Our page on Building Regulations approval for a rooflight covers what that involves.

Where historic work was never notified, a regularisation route exists through building control. It is a different application to a different department and it does not follow from the certificate.

The listed building version is a separate certificate

Certificates of lawfulness deal with planning permission. They cannot tell you anything about listed building consent, which is granted under different legislation and is not affected by permitted development at all.

Since 2013 there has been an equivalent for listed buildings: an application for a certificate that proposed works would not affect the character of the building as one of special architectural or historic interest, and therefore that consent is not required. It is the right instrument where the question is whether a like-for-like replacement in an existing opening needs consent, and a poor bet where a new opening is proposed in historic fabric. The same question arises on outbuildings, which our page on curtilage buildings deals with.

One further warning that applies to both. Making a false or misleading statement to obtain a certificate is an offence, and a certificate obtained on incorrect information can be revoked. These are documents to be accurate in, not persuasive in.

What we contribute to a certificate application

Heritage Skylights does not submit certificate applications and does not act as your agent with the council. That line is deliberate: a certificate turns on a legal test, and it should be put together by you, an architect or a planning consultant rather than by an installer.

What comes out of our survey is the technical evidence the application stands on. The measured projection of the specified unit above the plane of the existing slope, taken perpendicular to that plane rather than vertically, which is the figure the 150mm condition actually uses. The head height of the unit relative to the highest part of the existing roof. The roof structure and covering as found. The unit named in full with the manufacturer’s technical data. And the perimeter detail showing upstand, flashing laps and covering terminations, which is what makes the installation match the certificate once it is granted.

We install and replace rooflights and nothing else, and the workmanship carries a ten year guarantee. Where the survey shows a proposal cannot satisfy Class C, we will say so plainly rather than let a certificate application go in that was never going to succeed. You would then be looking at a planning application, and our page on rooflight planning permission in Oxford is the place to start.