The curtilage is the land immediately around a house that belongs with it in use and enclosure: the garden, the yard, the drive, the outbuildings that serve the house, but not the paddock beyond the fence or the strip that was always farmed. The curtilage definition matters to a developer because every householder permitted development right reads against it: the outbuilding limit is a share of it, the side and rear extensions must stay inside it, and a garden room built on land outside it is development on open land with no right at all. What is curtilage on a particular plot is a question of fact rather than of the title plan, decided by how the land is used with the house, how it is enclosed and how it lay when the house was built, and it is the first measurement a developer takes at a viewing, because the particulars describe the plot and the order reads the curtilage.
How the curtilage is read on the ground
The curtilage is read from three things together: the physical enclosure, the fence, the wall, the hedge that separates the domestic land from what lies beyond; the use of the land, whether it serves the house as garden, yard or drive or is farmed, grazed or let apart from it; and the history, since land brought into the garden recently may still be agricultural or open land in planning terms whatever the fence now says. A large plot is not the same as a large curtilage, and the most expensive mistake in this trade is to read the title plan as the curtilage and price an outbuilding scheme against land the order does not count.
What is inside it and what the order does with it
Inside the curtilage the householder classes apply: the rear and side extension envelopes on the house, the outbuildings, enclosures and containers up to a share of the curtilage excluding the original house, the porch, the hard surfaces. The envelope sheet on this site takes the curtilage excluding the house footprint as its own input for that reason, and reads the outbuilding room from it less what already stands. Outside the curtilage none of those rights exist, and a building on a paddock next to the garden is agricultural land development or nothing, however it is described in the particulars.
Why the curtilage decides the offer, and what the file keeps
A developer who has measured the curtilage knows the outbuilding room, knows whether the side return lies inside the domestic land or on a strip that was never part of it, and knows whether the annexe scheme the agent suggests fits the order or needs an application. Curtilo Pro keeps the curtilage against the plot with how it was read, the enclosure, the use and the history, and the measurements, so the reading survives the viewing and the next plot in the same authority is read the same way; the guidance cited below is where the reading starts, and the authority's own view at a certificate application is the ruling.
Questions people ask about curtilage
Is the curtilage the same as the garden?
Usually the garden is the largest part of it, but the curtilage includes the drive, the yard and the outbuildings that serve the house, and excludes land used apart from it even if it is fenced in. It is a question of use, enclosure and history rather than of the title plan.
Does the curtilage include land I bought and added to the garden?
Not automatically. Land added recently may remain agricultural or open land in planning terms, and building on it under the householder classes is a common breach. The authority's view at a certificate application settles it; the guides on outbuildings and agricultural permitted development cover the two sides.
Why does the envelope sheet ask for the curtilage without the house?
Because the outbuilding limit is a share of the curtilage excluding the ground the original house covers, and what already stands counts against it. The sheet returns the room still available from those two figures.
Sources
- GOV.UK, Permitted development rights for householders: technical guidance, the government's reading of Part 1 with diagrams of the original house, the rear and side limits and designated land
- GOV.UK planning practice guidance, When is permission required: development, permitted development rights, prior approval and article 4 directions
- legislation.gov.uk, The Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015, Schedule 2 Part 1: the householder classes, the extension depths and widths, the outbuilding and porch limits and what designated land removes