Garage previously exempt from approval now requires approval

Hello,

some time ago we built our house. A garage was included in the building application. The building application was approved, and indeed without a building permit according to §67. Now, several years later, we started building the garage without obtaining a new permit, as we assumed that the dimensions of the garage allow it to be constructed without a permit. The garage differs from the one in the building application in that it is a bit longer and the roof shape has changed from a flat roof to a shed roof. The work on the garage is now nearly complete, but it has become apparent that the permitted ridge height at the gable wall of 4 m is exceeded by about 20 cm. My questions are: how should we proceed? Is it advisable to approach the building authority? What possible penalties could we face? Should we ask the land registry office to survey the garage after construction?
Thanks for tips

Regards

I am not familiar with the current regulations in Saarland, but according to your description, it seems to be like in NRW. Accordingly, your garage is an illegal construction. Since you planned differently from your original building notification, you should have submitted a new building notification or, if the exceeding of the ridge height was already planned, a building application with a request for exemption. Now the damage is already done. You would therefore have to apply for a subsequent legalization, which in NRW costs, in my opinion, double the fee. If things go really badly, no exemption will be granted and you will have to tear down the roof again. However, since I do not believe that a "self-disclosure" leads to a different procedure, I would hope that it does not come to notice (of course, it depends on what you mean by "almost completed").

The building survey is completely independent of this, at least in NRW. The land registry office will sooner or later notice the construction, for example, through systematic or random aerial image analysis, and request you to have the building surveyed. Until then, no action is required. Normally, no notification from the land registry office to the building approval authority takes place.

If anyone has had different experiences in Saarland, please correct me.

Permission-free vehicle shelters (Carport/Garage are supposedly the same) are not subject to cadastral surveying in every federal state, are they?!

: this varies from federal state to federal state. However, the so-called exemption procedure should not be confused with freedom from approval.

In NRW, for example, you need a building permit for both a garage and a carport, which can indeed be obtained through the exemption procedure if the conditions are met.

The garage in NRW must definitely be surveyed, and the carport depending on the construction method, possibly as well.

Since in the present case there is a deviation from the original building permit, it is a bit of a "no-risk-no-fun" situation if you don't get informed beforehand.

Regards
Dirk Grafe

thank you for your answer. since you know so much about this, how is it in Schleswig Holstein? we were told back then that a carport can be done completely without a building notification and so on, as long as you follow the rules of SH (9 meters length at the boundary (or 3 meters from the boundary), maximum average height of 275 cm) and this building (in this case carport) does not have to be measured.
in the building application for the house, only the position of the carport was drawn in (completely without dimensions), which was declared there as "als Eigenleistungen der Bauherren nach Fertigstellung des Hauses".

If your architect draws it that way and the building authority grants approval on that basis, I think that is fine. In NRW, one could save the effort of mailing such a building application, it would be rejected 100%.

You can also ask a publicly appointed surveyor on site or your personal surveyor, they should be able to answer that off the top of their head.

You can definitely find that in the "Landesbauordnung SH" and/or in the stipulations of the development plan.

Best regards
Dirk Grafe