Commercial to Residential Permitted Development: How Class MA Works in London

Which commercial buildings qualify for permitted development to residential

Class MA covers a building, and the land within its curtilage, in Class E use. Class E took in shops, restaurants, cafés, offices, clinics, gyms, nurseries and light industry in September 2020. Our guide to Use Class E lists every part of the class.

Three tests decide whether your building qualifies.

1. Two years of Class E use. The building must have been in Class E use for a continuous period of at least two years before the date of the application. Use before September 2020 counts where it fell in one of the old classes that were folded into Class E.
2. Not listed, not in a protected landscape. Listed buildings and their curtilage, scheduled monuments, sites of special scientific interest, safety hazard areas and military explosives storage areas are excluded. So are National Parks, the Broads, areas of outstanding natural beauty and World Heritage Sites.
3. No Article 4 direction. A council can remove the right over a defined area. Several central London boroughs have done so, and we cover them below.

Two tests have gone. Older guides still describe a 1,500 m² floorspace cap and a three-month vacancy test. Both were removed on 5 March 2024. A building of any size now qualifies, and it can still be occupied when you apply.

Conservation areas are not excluded. The council only gets an extra say where the ground floor changes use.

What the council checks at prior approval

Prior approval is a determination on listed matters, nothing more. For Class MA the council looks at nine things.

• Transport impacts, particularly safe access to the site
• Contamination risks on the site
• Flooding risks on the site
• Noise from neighbouring commercial premises reaching the new homes
• Adequate natural light in every habitable room
• The effect of homes in an area important for industry, waste, storage or distribution
• The loss of a registered nursery or an NHS health centre
• In a conservation area, the effect of a ground-floor change on the character of the area
• Fire safety, where the building will hold two or more homes and is 18 metres or more tall, or has seven or more storeys

Each matter needs evidence, not an assertion. Daylight is where deep office floorplates struggle. A flat drawn in the middle of the floor has no window, and the council cannot approve it. The fix is a layout drawn for light first, with the unit count following.

Where Class MA does not apply

Three situations send a scheme to a full planning application instead.

Article 4 directions in central London

An Article 4 direction removes a permitted development right over a defined area. The City of London removed Class MA for offices across all land in the Square Mile from 1 August 2022. Lambeth removed it over the whole of its part of the London Plan Central Activities Zone from the same date.

Several other central boroughs hold directions over their town centres and parts of the zone.

Directions are confirmed, modified and redrawn. The only safe check is the live direction and map for the exact address, before exchange.

Pubs, takeaways and other sui generis uses

Public houses, wine bars and drinking establishments left the use classes on 1 September 2020. They are sui generis, so they are outside Class E and outside Class MA. Hot food takeaways are the same. A pub to flats needs change of use planning permission, and the case is won on evidence that the pub is no longer viable.

Our Allitsen Road feasibility study is the typical case. A vacant corner building in the St John's Wood Conservation Area had been a pub and then a private members' club. No permitted development right applied. We tested four design options inside the 458 m² building and found room for up to seven apartments.

Warehouses and other buildings outside Class E

Storage and distribution is Class B8, not Class E. A warehouse cannot use Class MA, however long it has stood empty. The same is true of hotels, care homes and industrial uses that are too heavy for Class E(g). Those buildings reach homes through a full application, or through a different planning strategy for the site.

The 56 days and the three years

The application is simpler than a planning application. It needs a written description of the development, a plan of the site, the developer's contact address and the fee. In practice it also carries the reports that answer each matter: daylight, noise, flood risk, transport, contamination and, for taller buildings, a fire statement.

The council has 56 days from the date it receives the application. Three outcomes let the work begin. The council writes that prior approval is not required, or it gives its approval, or the 56 days end with no decision notified. Any longer period has to be agreed in writing, so do not agree one by reflex.

The development must then follow the details the council approved, or the details in the application where the 56 days ran out. It must be completed within three years from the prior approval date. After that, the building must stay in residential use.

Council fees for Class MA in 2026

Planning fees in England rose by 3.8% on 1 April 2026, in line with inflation. A further rise is proposed from 8 December 2026. It depends on Parliament approving the draft regulations, so treat the right-hand column as proposed, not fixed.

A ten-flat Class MA scheme therefore pays the council £2,600 today, against £6,590 for the same scheme through a full application. The reports cost far more than the fee, and they are the same reports either way.

What the consent does not give you

Prior approval settles the planning use. It does not settle whether the building can be converted well, or at what cost. Four things sit outside it.

1. Building Regulations. Turning a building into a dwelling, or creating a flat where there was none, is a material change of use under the Building Regulations. Fire, sound separation, energy, ventilation and access all have to meet the standards for new homes, and building control has to sign them off.
2. Structure and services. An office floor has one riser, one toilet core and a plant room sized for desks. Flats need drainage to every kitchen and bathroom, separate metering, and often a bigger electrical supply. These decide the cost more than the finishes do.
3. External works. Class MA permits the change of use of the building. New windows, balconies, extensions or extra storeys need their own planning application. Where daylight depends on new windows, that application has to run alongside the prior approval.
4. The build cost. The consent is free of any test of viability. Our guide to commercial to residential conversion cost sets out what drives the figure. Our commercial to residential conversion team prices the layouts while they are drawn.

That last point matters most. A scheme drawn by a planning consultant alone can win prior approval and then fail on the fire strategy or the services.

At Portsoken House in Aldgate we converted 1,550 sq m in seven months around tenants who stayed in occupation. It was a warehouse-to-office conversion rather than Class MA, but the same discipline applies: the build is designed before the consent, not after.

When full planning beats Class MA

Class MA is the quicker route, not always the better one. A full application wins where the building sits in an Article 4 area or the use is sui generis. It also wins where the scheme needs external changes to work. It also wins where more homes come from extending the building than from the existing floorplate alone.

Full applications take longer and cost more in fees. They also open the door to policy objections that prior approval shuts. The honest answer for a given building comes from the use history, the designations and the floorplate, read together. We give that answer free, before any fee, as the first step of our planning consultancy and planning permission service.

Seven checks before you buy or apply

Every item on this list can be checked before you exchange. Bad answers are far cheaper to hear then than after. If you have a building in mind, get a free eligibility check and we will tell you which route it takes.

One team from eligibility to keys

A Class MA scheme passes through a planning consultant, a daylight specialist, an acoustician, a fire engineer, a structural engineer and a contractor. Every handover between them is where a week disappears, or where the approved scheme turns out to be unbuildable.

Craftex started in 2016 as a carpentry and joinery company and built its own construction department. Around 60% of our labour is in-house. The team that checks your building's eligibility is the team that draws the layouts for light, prepares the application and builds the homes. Every project we have delivered has finished ahead of programme and on budget.

We take on conversions from £100,000 to £10M and above, and design commissions from £15,000. Development schemes from £3M to £150M GDV can be partnered. For the step-by-step build, read our commercial to residential conversion guide.