The former four-year rule has secured a lawful development certificate for a separate dwelling at The Grange Farm in Strines, Stockport. The critical fact was that the residential change of use occurred before 25th April 2024.
Inspector A Walker allowed the appeal on 11th September 2026, finding that transitional legislation preserved the old enforcement period. The four years did not have to be completed before the law changed.
This does not revive a four-year rule for new unauthorised dwellings. In England, a change of use to a single dwellinghouse occurring on or after 25th April 2024 is subject to the ten-year period.
What the Stockport appeal concerned
BoomoGrace Property Ltd sought a certificate confirming the existing use of a detached building as a single dwelling at The Grange Farm, 172 Strines Road, Strines, Stockport SK6 7GA.
Application DC/097350 was dated 22nd October 2025. Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council refused it on 18th December 2025, leading to appeal APP/C4235/X/26/3377419.
This was an existing-use certificate under Section 191, not an application to decide whether a new home should receive planning permission on its merits. The appellant needed to establish lawfulness at the application date, on the balance of probabilities.
Our lawful development certificate appeal guide explains that distinction.
Why the four-year rule still applied
Section 115 of the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 changed the relevant enforcement periods in England from four years to ten years. It amended Section 171B of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
The change came into force on 25th April 2024. But regulation 5(b) of SI 2024/452 preserves the previous position for a breach within Section 171B(2) which occurred before commencement.
For a material change of use of a building to a single dwellinghouse, the question is therefore when the breach occurred. It is not whether four years had already elapsed by 25th April 2024.
The Inspector found that independent residential occupation began on 17th April 2021. That brought the breach within the transitional saving, so the former four-year period continued to govern it.
There is a separate saving in regulation 5(a) for operational development substantially completed before 25th April 2024. The two categories should not be confused: completion of building works and commencement of a separate dwelling use are different events.
The four dates that explain the result
| Date | Why it mattered |
|---|---|
| 17th April 2021 | The separate household began occupying the building as its main residence. |
| 22nd October 2021 | The relevant four-year evidential date, calculated back from the LDC application. |
| 25th April 2024 | The new ten-year provisions commenced, subject to the transitional savings. |
| 22nd October 2025 | The date on which the applicant sought to establish that the use was lawful. |
The council argued for 24th April 2020 as the relevant date. The Inspector rejected that: the saved four-year period was measured against the certificate application, not treated as a period which had to expire before the legislative change.
Because the independent use started in April 2021, it had existed for more than four years by the October 2025 application. Our enforcement time limits guidance covers the current rule and the surviving transitional cases.
Shared access did not prevent a separate planning unit
The building and the larger main house shared a driveway and parking area. Together with another outbuilding, they formed a close courtyard arrangement, and the appeal property did not have exclusively allocated parking or private outdoor amenity space.
Those relationships did not decide the issue. The buildings remained physically detached, and the evidence showed occupation by a separate household with the facilities needed for independent day-to-day life.
The Inspector applied Burdle and Williams v Secretary of State for the Environment and New Forest Rural District Council, cited in the decision at [1972] 1 WLR 1207. Identifying the planning unit is a matter of fact and degree, starting with the unit of occupation and considering the physical and functional relationship between activities.
He explained that independent residential properties, particularly in larger estate settings, can share access, parking and amenity space. Here, those shared arrangements did not link the two households sufficiently to make them one planning unit.
Our guides to planning units and ancillary uses and residential annexes explain why a self-contained building is not automatically a separate dwelling, but nor does a shared driveway automatically make it an annexe.
The evidence showed independent residential occupation
The evidence included statutory declarations, tenancy agreements, gas-safety records, service bills and correspondence addressed to the property. Together, these supported occupation as a self-contained home rather than accommodation ancillary to the main house.
The council did not dispute the declarations covering occupation from 17th April 2021. It confirmed that it had no contrary evidence about occupation by a household separate from the main dwelling after that date.
The Inspector found the appellant’s evidence sufficiently precise and unambiguous to establish the independent use on the balance of probabilities. An absence of council evidence was not treated as a substitute for the applicant putting forward a coherent, adequately evidenced case.
A short gap between tenants did not restart the clock
The first household left on 17th November 2024. The next occupier moved in on 10th December 2024, leaving a gap of approximately three weeks.
The Inspector expressly found that this short interval did not break continuity. His overall conclusion was that the separate dwelling use had continued without significant interruption.
The decision does not set out a separate test based on marketing, retained furniture or a particular maximum vacancy period. It should not be read as creating a fixed three-week allowance for every case: the finding concerned continuity of this established residential use on this evidence.
Planning Geek analysis: identify the breach before counting the years
The first task is to identify the actual breach relied upon. Was it operational development, a material change to a single dwellinghouse, another change of use or a breach of condition? Different starting events and transitional provisions can apply.
For a historic separate dwelling, establish when independent residential use genuinely began. Evidence that conversion works were finished, or that a building could be lived in, does not necessarily establish the date when its use materially changed.
This appeal is a useful illustration of a saved four-year period continuing to run after April 2024. It is not a shortcut for new dwellings, HMOs or other uses which fall outside that saving.
Any assessment must also check whether enforcement action, an existing notice or other relevant legal circumstances prevent reliance on immunity. A certificate confirms the identified use on the certified date; it does not authorise every future alteration or change of use.
Read the decision and transitional legislation
The key passages are paragraphs 4–6 on the transitional rules, 7–11 on the planning unit and evidence, and 9 and 12 on continuity. The six-page document includes the resulting lawful development certificate and its plan.
The legislation is The Planning Act 2008 (Commencement No. 8) and Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 (Commencement No. 4 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2024, particularly regulations 3(b) and 5.
Report prepared: 12th September 2026
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