Talking to Neighbours About Your Extension

Nothing poisons a building project faster than a neighbour who finds out about your extension from a council letter. That formal notification, landing on their doormat with no warning, turns a straightforward planning application into a grudge match. And grudge matches generate objections.

The irony is that most neighbour objections carry no planning weight whatsoever. "I don't want an extension next door" is not grounds for refusal. But an angry neighbour who feels blindsided will find reasons to object, and even baseless objections create stress and delays, sometimes triggering a referral to the planning committee.

You can avoid almost all of this by knocking on the door before you submit.