Déclaration Préalable

Its a geat sounding name but obtaining planning permission in France for building works of a minor nature is relatively straight forward. Simply you fill in a standard form describing the works and its location together with drawings and the all important Plan Cadastral and send everything to the local Maries office and wait for 28 days.

In our village I have been told the Mayor rides round in his car looks at the building and decides if it causes any issues with the neighbours and whether it looks ok. If you hear nothing then you can proceed. Great system if you have to work within the planning system in the UK where every step of the process can be made very arduous by Council red-tape. In France if you are wanting to work on your house go to your local Marie and tell them and they will advise you what to do next,

As guide a those building works that require a works declaration can be summarised as follows:

• A new building or extension to an existing building, not greater than 20m²;
• Creation of any openings in a building;
• Garage/Workshop not greater than 20m²;
• Conversion works that transform at least 10m² of the gross surface area into net surface area, eg garage, attic, basement;
• Changes to the exterior finish of the property;
• A below ground swimming pool;
• Works to historic listed buildings not requiring planning consent;
• Boundary wall or fence above 2 metres;
• Change of use of a building, even where no works undertaken (although planning consent required if external structure altered or structural work undertaken);
• Installation of temporary caravan.

The  Declaration Prealable can be found
http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/R17501.xhtml

An English translation can be found
http://www.propertytranslations.com/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_details/gid,30/Itemid,42/lang,english/

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