With the housing market cooling, many people are looking for alternatives to putting their property on the market. One favoured way of adapting an existing property to suit your requirements more adequately has always been through structural changes, such as an extension or loft conversion. And a new report by Sainsbury's Home Insurance has suggested that as many as one in five (21 per cent) of British homeowners are currently planning to undertake major structural changes to their properties before next summer.

As of last Wednesday, homeowners south of the border will find their path to planning approval somewhat less fraught, since loft conversions and some rear extensions no longer require planning permission before being built. As yet, the Scottish Government has no plans to relax its own legislation in the same way, although many homeowners would actively welcome such a move, with an estimated 5.3 million people across Britain intending to undertake some sort of major structural work. Of this total, 1.3 million say they are planning on converting their loft or roof, and 950,000 are planning a rear extension to their property.

Neil Laird, Sainsbury's Home Insurance Manager, pointed out that even if the new regulations came to Scotland, homeowners would still have to inform their insurers: "As buildings insurance premiums are calculated based on the type of house, for example the number of bedrooms it has, creating extra rooms can have an impact on your premium even if you have unlimited cover. We want to make sure that homeowners are aware that they could be left underinsured or even invalidate their insurance entirely in the event of an incident during or after the works if they have not informed their insurer first."