How do I apply for a permit for a garden home (mantelzorgwoning)?

You apply for a permit through the national Omgevingsloket (the government's online planning and permit portal). But the first step is not the application: it is checking whether you actually need one. A garden home (mantelzorgwoning) may stand in the back garden without a permit in many gardens, and in that case an application is a waste of time and money.

So first do the permit check for your address. It retrieves what applies in your municipality (gemeente) and shows whether you are taking the short or the long route. If a permit turns out to be needed, below you will find what you can expect.

An application consists of two tracks

Since the Omgevingswet (Environment and Planning Act), the spatial planning part and the technical part have been assessed separately, and that explains why in the portal you sometimes apply for two things at once.

That second track changed in 2024. For simple buildings, which include a garden home, the technical part is no longer a permit but a construction notification (bouwmelding), with a quality assurance inspector (kwaliteitsborger) who checks the plan and the construction work. You submit that notification no later than four weeks before you start building, and afterwards a completion notification (gereedmelding) follows before the home is taken into use.

What you submit

The municipality wants to be able to assess the plan without having to guess. These documents are almost always requested.

• A site plan of the plot, with the home drawn in, the distances to the boundaries and the buildings that are already there.
• Floor plans, elevations and cross-sections with dimensions. With us, that drawing is ready on every model page, as a PDF with the dimensions in millimetres.
• Photos of the existing situation, including the garden and the neighbouring plots.
• Evidence of the informal care relationship, often a statement from a GP, district nurse or social medical adviser.
• Details of the structure and of how the home meets the technical building requirements.

The steps at a glance

From first question to start of construction, the process looks like this. The first two steps cost you nothing and are worth doing, even if you are still unsure.

• Check for your address. Permit-free or not, and if not: which route.
• Preliminary consultation (vooroverleg) with the municipality. Many municipalities offer an informal conversation or a draft request. There you hear in advance where the sticking points are, without the clock of the procedure running.
• Design and drawings that match what will actually be placed.
• Inform the neighbours and note down when you did so.
• Submit the application through the Omgevingsloket, complete in one go.
• Decision period, possibly with a request for additional information.
• Decision, followed by a period in which interested parties can lodge an objection.
• Construction notification with the quality assurance inspector, no later than four weeks before the start.

That preliminary consultation is the step that pays off most and is most often skipped. A municipal officer who has seen your plan in advance already knows what it is about when the formal application comes in.

How long it takes

Most applications follow the regular procedure, with a decision period of eight weeks. The municipality can extend this once by six weeks, and that happens regularly. If your plan departs significantly from the environmental plan, an extended procedure may be needed and the processing time goes up to about six months.

Important for your planning: those weeks do not have to be lost time. With us, the application runs in parallel with the design and production of the home, so the home is ready when the decision comes in. What the rest of the timeline looks like is explained in how long building takes.

What it costs

Municipalities charge fees (leges) for a permit application, usually as a percentage of the construction costs with a minimum amount. That rate is set in your municipality's fee regulations (legesverordening) and varies widely, so we do not give an amount here. Look it up before you apply.

Two things are good to know. You usually owe the fees even if the application is refused, because you pay for it being processed. And with a construction notification with quality assurance, the costs of the inspector come on top; that is a separate party with its own rate.

The neighbours are part of it

Under the Omgevingswet, an application asks whether and how you have involved local residents. Where a plan departs from the environmental plan, a municipality can even make this participation a condition.

Apart from the formal side, this is simply sensible. A neighbour who hears about it from the crane is a neighbour who calls the municipality. A neighbour who has seen the drawing beforehand and knows it is about care for your mother rarely submits a formal objection (zienswijze). So pop round before you apply, and note when you did so.

What makes an application stronger

• Clear evidence of the care needs. Not only that care is needed, but why being close by matters for it.
• A plan that is no larger than necessary. A spacious home on a small property raises questions you would not have had with a more compact model.
• A spot at the back of the property, out of sight of the street, with the distances to the boundary included.
• The commitment that the home will be removed when the care stops. With a movable home that can be demonstrated and is not an empty promise.
• Complete documents in one go. An incomplete application leads to a request for additional information, and the period then starts running again.

Four misunderstandings

• "Permit-free means there are no requirements." No. The technical building requirements of the Bbl still apply; it is just that nobody comes to check in advance.
• "If the building is allowed, living in it is allowed too." No. Building and use are assessed separately, and use as a self-contained home depends on the informal care relationship.
• "An assessment from the care administration office (zorgkantoor) is required." No. The municipality wants to know whether there is informal care as defined in the Wmo (Social Support Act); many municipalities ask for a statement, not an assessment.
• "The neighbour can block it." Not directly. He can submit a formal view (zienswijze) or lodge an objection, and the municipality takes that into account. With a permit-free building it formally plays no role, although he can ask for enforcement if he thinks it falls outside the rules.

If the permit is refused

A refusal is a decision, and you can lodge an objection against it with the municipality within six weeks. If that objection is rejected, you can appeal to the court. Always ask for the reasoning first, because it states why the plan does not meet the requirements according to the municipality.

There is often a middle way at that point. A smaller model, a different spot on the property or an adapted shape can remove the objection without you having to abandon the whole plan. Ask for a meeting before you go down the legal route; that takes an hour and more often leads to a solution than a procedure does.

What we do for you

If a permit is needed, we take care of the application: the drawings, the supporting evidence and the submission. You do not need to work out which form goes where, and the application runs in parallel with the design and construction.

What we cannot do is guarantee the outcome. The environmental plan belongs to your municipality and so does the assessment. What we do is find out in advance what your municipality's position is, so that you do not start a process that has no chance. So do the permit check as your first step, and read the main municipal rules if needed.

Sources

• [Act] Omgevingswet (Environment and Planning Act) — art. 5.1 et seq. — permit requirement, procedures and participation — accessed 2026-08-20
• [Decree] Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving (Bbl, Buildings Decree) — technical building requirements, construction notification and completion notification — accessed 2026-08-20
• [Act] Wet kwaliteitsborging voor het bouwen (Wkb, Building Quality Assurance Act) — independent inspection for simple buildings — accessed 2026-08-20
• [Act] Algemene wet bestuursrecht (General Administrative Law Act) — decision periods, objection and appeal — accessed 2026-08-20
• [Guidance] Informatiepunt Leefomgeving (government information point on planning) — applying through the Omgevingsloket — accessed 2026-08-20