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My (soon to close) business has been using our outbuilding (a former victorian hosiery factory) as an office since we moved here in 2015. It’s a nice, self-contained building with its own electricity supply.
I never got planning permission to do this and I have never had a mortgage on the property. No-one has said anything so far so I was thinking of getting a certificate of lawful development and then using permitted development rights to convert it into the new category C3 (dwellinghouses).
Now, here’s the question. Can you let out a C3 property as an AirBNB, or is it really a C1(hotel/guesthouse)?
I’d love to hear from my English/Welsh/NI colleagues.
Can you go online and find the relevant information from the agency responsible for the permits? I suspect that it’s right there. Your search engine of choice is your friend.
I think that from what I have read (and another property project I did a few years ago) converting a building from an office to residential falls under the remit of permitted development. However, the question is really about the kind of residential permit other Airbnb users are getting by on.
You’re overthinking it, and also getting caught up with a brand name. As @jaquo says, Airbnb are just one of many OTA’s.
Speak to a local architect who knows how your local planning dept behaves, especially as you may need retrospective PP to regularise your office before you can apply for a change of use.
