How to Check Planning Permission on a Property

Check planning permission on the council portal

Every council must keep a register of planning applications. Section 69 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 says it "must be kept available for inspection by the public at all reasonable hours". There is no single national search. Each council holds its own register.

The law allows a council to publish the register on its website, and many do, as a planning portal. You search it by address, postcode or reference number. In London, that means the borough's portal, not the Greater London Authority.

1. Find the right council. Use the postcode to find which council covers the site. Sites on a boundary can sit in two.
2. Search the address more than one way. Try the house number, the street alone and the postcode. Converted buildings often change numbers.
3. Open the decision notice. It lists the approved plans and every condition. The summary line on the portal does not.
4. Download the approved plans. Check that what stands on site matches them.
5. Note the reference and the date. You need both to work out the time limit and to find later approvals.

The register comes in two parts, set by article 40 of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015. Entries must be made within 14 days of an application or decision.

If the portal shows nothing for an older building, the records may simply not be online. Ask the planning department to search its paper files.

Find old permissions and the planning history

The planning history is every application ever made on the site. It includes refusals, withdrawn applications and appeals, not just the consents. Read all of it, oldest first.

Refusals matter as much as approvals. The reasons for refusal show what the officers objected to: height, daylight, parking or the loss of a use. An appeal decision shows what the Inspector made of those reasons. A new scheme that ignores them is likely to meet the same answer.

Look for these in the history:

1. More than one permission. Two consents can overlap on one site. Do not assume the latest one wins, or that both can be built.
2. Prior approvals. Office-to-home and other permitted development routes appear as prior approval decisions, with their own limits.
3. Certificates of lawfulness. These confirm that a use or building was lawful on a given date.
4. Withdrawn applications. A scheme is often withdrawn just before a refusal. The officer's comments usually stay on file.

Then check the separate enforcement register. Section 188 requires councils to keep a register of enforcement notices, stop notices and breach of condition notices. Enforcement warning notices go on it too. Like the planning register, it is open to the public at all reasonable hours.

Finally, search the neighbouring addresses. A consent next door for an extra storey can affect your daylight, outlook and value.

Read the conditions and the expiry date

Section 70 lets a council grant permission with conditions. The conditions are where most problems sit. They come in three broad kinds.

1. Before work starts. Details such as materials, drainage or a construction plan need the council's approval first.
2. Before anyone moves in. Cycle stores, refuse areas or landscaping must be in place before occupation.
3. For as long as the use lasts. Opening hours, obscure glazing or a ban on extra windows.

Part 2 of the register records the dates when details under conditions were approved. If a condition needed approval before work started, look for that approval. A start made in breach of such a condition may not count as a lawful start.

The time limit is a condition too. Section 91 sets three years in England, unless the council chose another period. Check the wording on the notice, not the default.

Section 56 says work has begun when a "material operation" starts. That includes digging a foundation trench, demolishing a building or laying a pipe to the foundations. Ask the seller for evidence: dated photos, building control records or a council letter confirming the start.

If the time ran out before any start, the permission has lapsed. Section 73 cannot then be used to change it. You need a fresh application, and our guide to how long planning permission takes shows what that adds to your programme.

Check lawful use and certificates of lawfulness

A permission tells you what was approved. The lawful use tells you what the property can be used for today. The two do not always match. A house split into flats without consent is still, in law, a house.

The legal proof is a certificate of lawfulness. There are two kinds:

1. Existing use, section 191. It confirms that an existing use, building work or breach of a condition is lawful.
2. Proposed use, section 192. It confirms a use or works "would be lawful if instituted or begun at the time of the application".

Section 191(2) explains when an existing use becomes lawful. It is lawful if it did not need permission, or if the time for enforcement has passed. That time limit changed in 2024.

Whether a past conversion is now immune depends on what was done and when. Building works and a change of use to a single home have one clock, and other changes of use have another. The 2024 change left old cases on the old four-year rule. Do not assume time has run: get a certificate of lawfulness.

Our guide to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 explains section 171B in full.

Without a certificate, a seller's word is not proof. If the use matters to your price, ask for a certificate as a condition of the sale. For which application fits which case, see outline, full planning or a certificate of lawfulness.

Land charges, title and enforcement checks

The planning register is one source. Three other checks complete the picture, and two of them are cheap.

Not every council's land charges are on the HM Land Registry service yet. Where they are not, search with the council directly.

A section 106 agreement is a local land charge under section 106(11). It binds anyone who later owns the land. Read its money and timing clauses before you price the site. An affordable housing payment due on first occupation lands on the buyer, not the seller.

The title matters as much as the consent. A restrictive covenant can stop a scheme the council approved. A missing right of way can stop the access the plans rely on.

What a buyer should verify before exchange

A permission passes with the land. Section 75 says it benefits the land and everyone with an interest in it. So do its conditions, its section 106 and any breach on the site. Check these before you exchange, not after.

The planning check is half the job. The other half is whether the consented scheme makes money at today's build costs. Many consents were drawn without a contractor's price.

Our development land and site sourcing service works for the buyer, not the seller. We check the numbers on consented sites and flag the risks before you commit. At Allitsen Road in St John's Wood, a derelict club bought at auction became four costed schemes with a planning strategy in four weeks.

Our Development Director, Rob Barton, took 10,000+ homes through planning in his previous roles.

Found a site with a consent you need to trust? Send us the address before you exchange, not after. Get a free site appraisal. We will read the history, test the conditions and expiry, flag any enforcement risk and tell you what the site can carry.