Hampstead Architecture and Planning

Haringey

House Refurbishment Architects in Harringay

There is an Article 4 direction covering Harringay that has nothing to do with conservation areas and catches far more people. Since 30 November 2013 the permitted change of use from a family house to a small house in multiple occupation has been removed across fourteen Haringey wards, Harringay among them. That decides what a refurbished house may lawfully be used for, and it should shape the brief before anything is drawn.

Last updated

Book an Architectural ConsultationGet your fixed-fee packageor call 020 8054 8756

The short answer

What should a Harringay refurbishment settle first?

The intended use, because Harringay is inside Haringey’s HMO Article 4 direction. Converting a family house to a small house in multiple occupation has needed planning permission here since 30 November 2013, and a shared-house brief and a family brief produce genuinely different buildings. Settle the use, then the fire and ventilation strategies, and only then the finishes.

Planning at a glance

Harringay

Planning at a glance in Harringay
Local planning authorityHaringey
Likely approval routeHouseholder planning application or permitted development, depending on conservation status, listing and property type — confirmed for the exact address before drawings begin
Statutory determination time8 weeks for most householder applications (13 weeks for major applications)
Where most projects startPlanning Route Review — £395 inc. VAT, credited in full against your package if you proceed. Find my package →

Establish the lawful use before the brief is written. A house that has been let to sharers may or may not have an established lawful use as a small HMO, depending on when that use began and whether it has continued. Where it began after 30 November 2013 without permission, it is not lawful simply because it has been happening. Where it began before, or has continued long enough to become immune, a certificate of lawfulness is the way to put the position beyond argument. That answer changes what the house can be refurbished for and therefore what it is worth.

The two briefs are genuinely different buildings. A family refurbishment puts the value into shared space — a good kitchen, a coherent ground floor, storage, a working stair. A shared-house refurbishment puts it into repetition: en-suites, sound separation between rooms, robust finishes, and a fire strategy built for people who do not know one another. Trying to build one and call it the other produces a house that serves neither well, and on resale the family market notices immediately.

The fabric work underneath is the familiar pre-1919 one either way. These houses were built to move moisture through solid brick, lime mortar and lime plaster, with a suspended timber ground floor ventilated through air bricks. The damaging decisions are the ones that stop that working — cement render, gypsum over damp brick, vinyl paint, an impermeable screed over an old void, or air bricks blocked by a patio. The damp that follows is routinely misdiagnosed and treated with an injected course that addresses neither the moisture nor its cause.

Fire safety is where these houses most often fall short. A three-storey house, or a two-storey one with a habitable loft, generally needs a protected escape route from the top floor to a final exit under Part B: an enclosed stair, fire doors to habitable rooms opening onto it, and mains-linked interlinked alarms. In a licensable HMO the requirements go further again and are enforced separately through licensing. Resolving the route while the house is stripped costs a fraction of retrofitting it afterwards.

Local analysis

What matters in Harringay

What the HMO direction actually changes for an owner

The direction is easy to misread in both directions, so it is worth being precise about what it does. Nationally, changing the use of a dwellinghouse to a small house in multiple occupation — broadly, three to six unrelated people sharing facilities — is permitted development, moving between use classes C3 and C4 without an application. Haringey has removed that right across fourteen wards including Harringay, so within them the change requires planning permission. What the direction does not do is regulate who may live in a house: a family, a couple with a lodger, or a household that is a single household in planning terms is unaffected, and the direction does not apply retrospectively to a use that was already lawfully established before it came into force on 30 November 2013. Nor does it replace licensing, which is a separate regime with its own thresholds, standards and enforcement — a house can require both a planning permission and a licence, and having one says nothing about the other. Three practical consequences follow for anyone refurbishing here. First, if you are buying a house that is being let to sharers, the lawfulness of that use is a question to answer before exchange rather than after, because an unlawful use is not cured by having gone unnoticed and the value of the house may depend on it. Second, if you intend to let a family house to sharers after the works, that is a planning application and it should be made and determined before the design is finalised, since a refusal changes the brief entirely. Third, if you are converting a shared house back to family use, that direction is not an obstacle at all — returning to C3 needs no permission — but the physical work of undoing the conversion is substantial and is worth surveying properly before it is priced.

Sequencing a whole-house refurbishment so nothing is done twice

A refurbishment of this scale is won or lost on sequence, because most of the expensive mistakes are re-openings — a wall replastered before the electrician has finished, a floor laid before the ventilation ducts were run, a bathroom tiled before the soil stack was moved. The order that works on these houses starts with investigation rather than work: open up enough of the fabric to know what is there, survey the drainage, test the electrics, and establish whether the roof and the rear closet wing junction are sound, before a single decision about finishes is taken. Then comes anything structural — openings formed, the closet wing junction resolved, the stair altered if it is being altered — because everything else is fitted around structure and nothing above it can be finalised until it is fixed. Then the first fix of every service at once: electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilation ductwork, data, and the fire alarm wiring, all designed together so the routes do not collide inside a floor void. Only then does the fabric close up — insulation, plasterboard or lime plaster, floors — and only after that do the finishes and joinery arrive. Two decisions belong far earlier than owners expect. The ventilation strategy has to be settled at first fix because the ducts are impossible to install neatly later, and on a tightened house it is what keeps the fabric safe. And the fire strategy has to be settled before the stair and the doors are ordered, because a protected route changes both. Where the budget requires the work to be staged over several years, the same order applies, with the plan written at the outset so that each stage does not foreclose the next — the commonest and most avoidable waste on a staged project is decorating a floor that will have to be lifted again.

Thinking about a project in Harringay?

Send the address and a short description. We will confirm the likely approval route and the drawings your project needs.

Book an Architectural ConsultationSee fixed-fee packagesor call 020 8054 8756

Local planning

Planning & conservation context

Haringey made an Article 4 direction removing the permitted development right to change the use of a dwellinghouse (Class C3) to a small house in multiple occupation (Class C4). It was made on 18 September 2012, confirmed on 15 October 2013 and came into force on 30 November 2013.

The direction covers fourteen wards: Bounds Green, Bruce Castle, Harringay, Hermitage and Gardens, Northumberland Park, Noel Park, St Ann’s, Seven Sisters, South Tottenham, Tottenham Central, Tottenham Hale, West Green, White Hart Lane and Woodside. Within them, converting a house to a small HMO needs planning permission.

This is entirely separate from Haringey’s four conservation area Article 4 directions, which cover Noel Park, Peabody Cottages, Tower Gardens and Rookfield Estate and address small-scale change such as alterations to windows and doors.

Clyde Circus is the conservation area covering part of the Harringay grid, and St Ann’s lies immediately east. Neither carries an Article 4 direction, so in those designations the minor works — windows, doors, painting — generally remain permitted development.

Conservation area status still removes side extensions from Class A and roof extensions from Class B on designated land, and reduces the rear extension allowance, so the external scope of a refurbishment differs inside and outside the boundary.

Where original front elevation joinery survives on a designated street, repairing rather than replacing it is both the better technical answer and the one that protects the character the designation exists for.

For the wider local-authority picture — policies, timescales and application routes — see planning in Haringey.

Illustrative study — street elevation

Services

Architectural services in Harringay

Browse all London architectural services.

Nearby

Nearby House Refurbishment Architects pages

House Refurbishments in Stroud GreenHouse Refurbishments in Finsbury ParkHouse Refurbishments in HornseyHouse Refurbishments in Crouch EndHouse Refurbishments in Wood GreenHouse Refurbishments in Stoke Newington

Architecture in Harringay: FAQs

Do I need permission to let my Harringay house to sharers?

Within the fourteen wards covered by Haringey’s HMO Article 4 direction — Harringay among them — yes. The direction removed the permitted change of use from a dwellinghouse (C3) to a small house in multiple occupation (C4) with effect from 30 November 2013, so that change now requires planning permission. It does not apply to a use lawfully established before that date.

Is that the same as the conservation area Article 4 directions?

No, they are separate instruments with different purposes. The HMO direction concerns change of use and covers fourteen wards. Haringey’s conservation area directions cover only Noel Park, Peabody Cottages, Tower Gardens and Rookfield Estate, and address small-scale change such as alterations to windows and doors. A house can be affected by one, both or neither.

What if the house is already let to sharers?

The question is whether that use is lawful, which depends on when it began and whether it has continued. A use begun after 30 November 2013 without permission is not made lawful by going unnoticed. Where it began earlier or has continued long enough to become immune, a certificate of lawfulness puts the position beyond argument — and it is a question to answer before exchange rather than after.

Does the direction stop me having a lodger?

No. The direction concerns the change of use to a house in multiple occupation, not who may live in a home. A family, or a household that remains a single household in planning terms, is unaffected. Licensing is also a separate regime with its own thresholds — a house can need both a planning permission and a licence, and having one says nothing about the other.

Is converting a shared house back to a family home easier?

From a planning point of view, yes — returning to use as a single dwelling needs no permission under this direction. The physical work is the harder part: removing secondary kitchens and locks, reinstating a single circulation route, undoing partitioning, and revising the fire and sound separation for a house rather than for separate households. Survey it properly before pricing it.

Why do these houses get damp after being done up?

Usually because the refurbishment stopped them drying. They were built to move moisture through solid brick, lime mortar and lime plaster, with a suspended floor ventilated through air bricks. Cement render, gypsum plaster over damp brick, vinyl paint, an impermeable screed or blocked air bricks all trap it. The result is routinely misdiagnosed as rising damp and treated with an injected course that addresses neither the moisture nor its cause.

In what order should the work be done?

Investigation first — open up, survey the drainage, test the electrics. Then structure. Then every service at first fix together, including ventilation ductwork and alarm wiring, designed so the routes do not collide. Then close the fabric up, then finishes. The ventilation and fire strategies belong far earlier than most people expect, because both change the stair, the doors and the floor voids.

What does a refurbishment architect in Harringay charge?

We publish fixed-fee packages rather than quoting a percentage before seeing the house, beginning with a survey and a written sequence credited against the design work if you proceed. Where the intended use is anything other than a single family home, that review also establishes the position under the HMO direction, because it determines what the house may lawfully become.

How much does a house refurbishment cost in Harringay?

Fees for house refurbishments in Harringay follow scope, consent complexity and whether freeholder or specialist input is required. Published packages start from a fixed fee once scope is clear; council, engineer and freeholder surveyor fees are usually separate. See our packages page for current fixed-fee bands — we confirm a fee only after the address and proposed work are understood.

Discuss a refurbishment in Harringay

Send your Harringay address, photographs of the stair and the rear elevation, and a note of how the house is currently occupied. We will establish the lawful use and the position under the HMO direction, set out the fire and ventilation strategies, and give you a sequence you can stage without doing anything twice.

Book an Architectural ConsultationEstimate the feesor call 020 8054 8756
Call 020 8054 8756Send Details