Problems found after you bought · Missing planning permission
When I bought this property, I didn’t know Missing planning permission could hold up a sale or a remortgage. Now I’m stuck.
Would you have bought the property if you had known?
If you had known the consents were missing before you committed, and understood the problems it could cause when you later came to sell or remortgage, would it have changed your decision?
- Would you have paid the same price?
- Would you have wanted it investigated first?
- Would you have walked away?
If knowing about the problem might have changed what you did, the next question is obvious.
Did you receive the right advice when you bought?
You may not know the answer yet. But if nobody explained the problem, or you are now questioning what you were told at the time, that is worth looking at.
You don’t need to know whether anyone was at fault. Tell us what happened and when you bought. We’ll talk it through with you.
Why missing planning permission can hold up a sale or remortgage
Planning control concerns whether the development was authorised. Some work requires express planning permission; other work may be authorised through permitted-development rights, so no permission document does not by itself mean unauthorised development. Whether the work also met the technical standards is a separate question, dealt with under building regulations. Work can satisfy one regime without satisfying the other.
What buyers worry about, and what a lender’s requirements tend to focus on, is being made to undo the work. What holds up the transaction is usually narrower: there is no paperwork for something that was built years ago, and nobody can produce it. On a sale, the buyer’s solicitor will need to consider what consents exist when advising the buyer and complying with any applicable lender requirements. On a remortgage, your conveyancer considers the proposed lender’s current requirements. Requirements differ between lenders.
Time matters too. The periods within which planning enforcement action can be taken have changed, and can depend on when the development was carried out and whether the property is in England or Wales. The current position should be checked by your conveyancer rather than assumed.
How the problem usually surfaces
Work with no paperwork
A loft conversion, extension or conservatory was built, by you or an earlier owner, and no permission can be found and nobody can show it was permitted development.
The seller could not answer
When you bought, nobody could confirm what had been done or when, so the position on consents was left open rather than established.
Work beyond permitted development
An extension or outbuilding looks larger or closer to a boundary than permitted development allows, and no express permission was obtained.
An indemnity policy that falls short
A policy exists, but it responds to enforcement action rather than making the development authorised, and its limit may no longer match the price.
Undischarged planning conditions
Permission was granted but nobody can show the conditions attached to it were formally discharged, which a buyer’s solicitor will raise.
What you can do about it now
Establish the facts first. Ask your conveyancer to identify what development was carried out and when. A local authority search may identify a planning application or decision, but your conveyancer should establish exactly what development it covered and what conditions applied. Copies of the decision notice, approved plans and any decisions discharging conditions may be obtainable.
Unless there is an immediate safety concern, take advice before contacting the council about potentially unauthorised work. An approach can bring the matter to the authority’s attention and may affect whether insurance is available. Possible routes include a retrospective planning application, a lawful development certificate, or an indemnity policy.
Be clear about what a policy does. Subject to its terms, a lack of planning permission indemnity policy may cover specified loss arising from planning enforcement, such as legal costs or the cost of complying with an enforcement notice. It does not make the development authorised, and is not automatically sufficient for every lender.
If you are selling, your conveyancer can ask the buyer’s solicitor what remains unresolved and whether it arises from the buyer’s lender’s requirements. If you are remortgaging, your conveyancer can check your proposed lender’s requirements directly.
What happened when you bought?
The work was either done before you bought or after. If it was done before, the position was capable of being investigated at the time, and the records from then may show what was found. If you carried out the work yourself, the questions are different, and about what you were told when you did it. Either way, what was known when you bought is a question of fact rather than an assumption.
Several records from the time may matter, and some may survive. The local authority search shows what entries existed then. The seller’s property information form may record what work had been done and whether consents were obtained. The replies your conveyancer received may show what was asked. There may already be an indemnity policy from your purchase, worth finding before paying for another. A survey may show whether the work was noticed. Your report on title may show what you were told. The conveyancing file draws those strands together. The lender’s historical written instructions may also be difficult to recover, because they are revised regularly and superseded versions disappear from public view.
Was this property really mortgageable when you bought?
Getting a mortgage when you bought does not necessarily tell you how readily mortgageable the property was across the wider market. There are two historical questions worth asking.
What did your own lender’s written requirements say about planning authorisation when you bought? And what express requirements did other lenders have recorded at the same time?
Lenders’ written requirements were not necessarily uniform, and their wording changed over time. That means both which lender you used and when you bought can matter.
Lenders set out in writing what they expect a conveyancer to do about particular features of a property. Those instructions are revised regularly, and superseded versions drop out of public view, which can make a question as simple as what was my conveyancer told about planning authorisation in the year I bought? surprisingly difficult to answer from the sources available today. Lexsure has retained historical lender-specific conveyancing requirements since April 2007, so where the records permit they can help reconstruct what your lender’s requirements said at the time and how that compared with the wider lending market.
Across that period, 17 lenders in our covered archive population have had express requirements about planning matters on record, addressed across 5 separate places in their instructions. The earliest express appearance we can identify in the material we hold dates from 2008; the most recent recorded change of wording is 2026.
Two points of precision, because they matter. “Earliest identified” means the earliest express appearance in the material we hold, not the date any requirement began. And where our material for a particular lender and period is incomplete, that lender is left out of these figures rather than counted as having said nothing. We do not treat an incomplete record as showing that the lender had no requirement.
So, when did you buy?
Changing the year here doesn’t send us an enquiry or tell us who you are.
An example of the kind of wording in force 2007 to 2011
One lender’s requirements, not named, by way of illustration. Requirements were not uniform and this is not the wording that applied to your purchase — that depends on your lender and your completion date.
No lender handbook Part-2 (specific) requirements were published prior to . But professionals were still under a duty of care on this topic. It is still worth speaking to us even if the purchase predates .
If we find no express requirement for your lender
Where our material for your lender and period is complete, the answer may simply be that no express wording about planning authorisation appears in it. Where our material is incomplete, we treat that as a gap in what we hold, not as evidence that your lender said nothing.
Either way, the lender’s instructions are only one part of the record from the time.
The wider picture
Historical lender requirements can help us understand how mortgageable the property was when you bought. The conveyancing file and the advice given to you also matter.
Lexsure holds historical Report on Title material: the reports conveyancers sent to homebuyers, going back years. That material shows the kinds of planning issues that were being addressed when firms reported to buyers, and it is a second and separate record from what lenders required.
Whether the works were identified
Was it established what development had been carried out, when, and whether permission existed or it was permitted development?
What the indemnity policy covered
Was a lack of planning permission indemnity policy arranged, were you told it responds to enforcement rather than authorising the work, and who paid?
Whether the practical effect was explained
Were you told that unauthorised development can affect the valuation and a later sale, and that planning conditions can restrict what you do?
Whether putting it right was raised
Was a retrospective planning application discussed, or a lawful development certificate, and what came of it?
These are examples of issues addressed in historical conveyancing material, not a checklist of what every purchaser should have been told. What mattered in an individual purchase depended on the circumstances and on what was known at the time.
So even if your mortgage completed, or there is nothing unusual in your lender’s historical requirements, it can still be worth talking to us about what happened.
Could this problem have been seen coming?
The relevant starting point is what was known, or could reasonably have been identified, when you bought.
What did the local search reveal? What did the seller disclose about the works? What was in the conveyancing file? What were mortgage lenders requiring at the time? What kinds of planning issues were conveyancing firms addressing with homebuyers? And what were you actually told?
Taken together, that can help build a picture of whether the problem you are facing today was already something that should have been considered when you bought.
Did you receive the right advice?
What the historical evidence can tell us
Where the relevant lender and period are covered, we may be able to establish what that lender’s conveyancing requirements said when you bought, and how that compared with the wider record at the time.
- That does not by itself establish that anyone was negligent, or that you have a claim. Those questions need the original file and legal advice.
- The absence of express wording does not establish that the lender accepted the issue.
- What your conveyancer had to tell your lender and what they had to tell you are different questions, and the second depends on the retainer and the circumstances.
Time limits apply, and in some cases the date on which you first knew enough about the problem matters as well as the date you bought, which is why we ask about both. Our full methodology, including how we treat gaps in the record, is set out in the archive and its limits. Where a solicitor later needs formal historical evidence, Lexsure can provide source-evidenced historical lender information.
Sources and review
This page is about planning authorisation for work at a property. Whether the work met the technical standards is a separate question: see missing building regulations approval. Guidance here about the present problem is general information. It is not legal advice about your property.
The periods for planning enforcement have changed. This page deliberately states no periods or thresholds, and the current position must be verified against primary sources and reverified at each review. Editorial: confirm the current position at each review
Historical lender information is drawn from Lexsure’s archive of lender-specific conveyancing requirements, maintained since April 2007. Figures on this page state the population they are drawn from.