What is the maximum height of a Garden Wall?
In Ireland, there are building regulations which state the maximum height a wall or fence in your back garden can be without the need for planning permission. This limit is 2m regardless of whether on not the wall is a boundary wall.
There are some exemptions to this, for example, retaining walls can exceed this height.
For the front of a house, the limit is 1.2m
What happens if I am buying a house and the walls exceed 2m?
It does occasionally happen that the surveyor flags the garden walls/fences exceeding 2m and would require planning permission. If this happens, your solicitor would need to run further planning checks to see if there is permission for the wall - bearing in mind that the permission may be assigned to the neighbouring property.
If the wall does not have the appropriate planning permission and there is no grounds to have a certificate of exemption for the wall, then your solicitor may advise requesting the vendor to apply for retention permission.
If the vendor refuses to do this, or there is an urgency around the sale, then the vendor can agree with their neighbour (provided it is a shared boundary wall) to simply remove a block or two to reduce the height to 2m or below.
Although any issue with planning can be a worry, as planning issues go, this is generally one of the least severe and easiest to rectify! But as this is a planning issue, it should be treated seriously and so listen to the advice of your solicitor!
At GetHouseSurvey.ie all of our surveyors are qualified, experienced (minimum of 10 years) and carry their own insurance, so when you book with us, you are in safe hands!
To book your survey or snag list, just go to GetHouseSurvey.ie and click "Get Survey Now". If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us at info@gethousesurvey.ie
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