If you've outgrown where you live, adding space is often more cost-effective than moving home, especially in more expensive parts of the country.

While doing building work can be stressful, buying and selling is time-consuming and sure to send your blood pressure through the roof, so can you avoid it?

Two of the best ways to add space (and value) are building an extension, usually to the side or rear, and converting the loft.

If you need another bedroom/s and bathroom, the loft is the obvious place to put them, and if you need more living space, extending downstairs is usually the answer.

Big kitchen-diners/family rooms, where the whole family can be together, even if they're doing different things, are really popular these days. But sometimes the only way to create them, especially in period properties, is to extend on the ground floor.

The good news is that building work such as loft conversions and ground-floor extensions can often be done under your home’s permitted development rights, which means you don’t need planning permission as long as you stick to the rules (governing width, height, materials, etc).

Flats and maisonettes don’t have these rights and some houses have had theirs removed, but most houses have them.

This is really useful because obtaining planning permission can be a lengthy, expensive and frustrating process – and you’ve no guarantee of success.

If you can get what you want, or close to it, without applying for planning, it often makes sense to go down the ‘permitted development’ route.

The permitted development rules can be different for different types of house – permitted loft conversions are 40 cubic metres in terraced houses and 50 cubic metres in detached and semi-detached houses, for example.

The rules can also be different on ‘designated land’, which includes conservation areas and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, where, for example, side extensions are not permitted development.

If your home is listed, the rules are much stricter – even minor alterations can require listed building consent from your local council, so check with its conservation department before doing anything.

Permitted development rights cover all sorts of building work, but sometimes you have no choice but to apply for planning permission.

If you do, expect the process to take at least eight weeks once the plans have been submitted to your local council for approval, plus prep time – getting to the stage where you're ready to submit plans can take months.

A good architect is a big asset because they’ll be able to come up with ideas and plans, can deal with the planning process for you and will know how it works.

If you want to find out about planning rules (and building regulations), go to www.planningportal.gov.uk, where there’s a lot of useful information, including guides to popular building projects and an interactive house and terrace, where you can click on different bits for planning (and other) information.

However, the best way to find out which rules and regulations apply to your home and proposed building project is to speak to your local council’s planning department.

You may not realise, for example, that you live on designated land or in a house that has had its permitted development rights removed. The council enforces the rules, and you risk breaking them at your peril.

Last autumn, the Government announced plans to relax the planning rules for a limited period, including greatly increasing the size of extensions considered permitted development.

The changes haven’t been confirmed yet, but if you’re thinking about doing building work and aren’t in a hurry, it may be worth waiting to find out if and how the rules will be changed, as it could make life a lot easier.