Appeal costs: fees, procedures and what you actually spend

The Planning Inspectorate does not charge you a penny to appeal a refused planning application in England. The planning appeal cost you should be budgeting for is entirely your own side of it: the time to write a statement of case, any professional help you buy, and the money the delay costs you while the decision sits in a queue. That is why an appeal can be nearly free or run into five figures, depending on which of the three procedures your appeal ends up in.

Knowing which procedure you are heading for is the first thing to establish, because it drives everything else.

What the Inspectorate charges

Nothing, for a planning appeal under section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Appeals are submitted through the Appeals Casework Portal on GOV.UK and there is no application fee for the appellant.

Two things are worth separating from that. Enforcement notice appeals carry a deemed application fee in some circumstances, and an award of costs is a separate matter that can leave you paying the other side. Neither changes the basic point: the state does not bill you for the appeal itself.

Deadlines do bite. Most planning appeals must be lodged within six months of the date on the decision notice. Householder appeals and some minor commercial appeals have a much shorter window of 12 weeks. Miss it and the appeal is invalid, with no discretion to extend, so diary the date the moment the refusal lands.

Written representations, hearings and inquiries

The procedure decides the cost. The Inspectorate takes your preference into account but makes the final choice against its published criteria.

Written representations is by far the most common route for a household extension or a single dwelling. There is no hearing to attend, no advocate, and no witness statements. You send in a statement, the council sends in theirs, interested parties comment, and the inspector visits the site.

An inquiry is a different animal. Barristers, proofs of evidence, rebuttals, and several sitting days. If your appeal is heading that way, the cost of running it is a commercial decision rather than a form-filling exercise.

Where the money actually goes

For a householder appeal on written representations, the honest answer is that many people run one themselves for the cost of their own time and a set of photographs. The statement needs to address the council's reasons for refusal one by one and point at the development plan policies and the current National Planning Policy Framework, published on 17 August 2026, rather than arguing about fairness.

Where money does get spent, it goes on four things. Someone to write the case and marshal the policy arguments. Revised or additional drawings, where the refusal turned on design or on a measurement nobody had drawn properly. Specialist evidence, for example a daylight study or a highway note, where the refusal reason is technical. And attendance costs, if the appeal becomes a hearing or an inquiry.

A well-argued Planning Statement prepared before the original application is the least expensive insurance against all of this. Refusals that quote a policy the application never engaged with are common, and they are avoidable.

The delay is the real cost

The Inspectorate publishes current average timescales by procedure, and they move, so check them rather than working from a figure someone quoted you two years ago. For most householders the appeal decision arrives months after the refusal.

Cost that out in your own terms. A builder's quotation held open. A rented flat while the extension is not built. A mortgage offer with an expiry date. On a small development site, the finance cost over the appeal period often exceeds every professional fee in the appeal put together. This is the number people forget, and it is usually the biggest one on the page.

When costs are awarded

Either party can apply for an award of costs against the other. Awards are not routine and they do not follow the result. The test in Planning Practice Guidance is unreasonable behaviour that has caused the other party to incur wasted expense.

Unreasonable behaviour comes in two flavours. Substantive, where a council refuses without evidence for its reasons, ignores its own officer's recommendation without a planning justification, or defends a reason it later withdraws. Procedural, where a party misses deadlines, produces evidence late, or fails to attend. Appellants get caught too, most often by appealing a scheme that is obviously contrary to an up-to-date plan, or by introducing a materially different proposal at appeal.

Apply at the right moment. In written representations the application goes in with the final submissions, and in a hearing or inquiry it is normally made before the event closes. A partial award is common, covering only the wasted work rather than the whole appeal.

The householder fast track

Householder appeals run on a shortened written representations timetable designed to be used without an agent. It is faster and lighter than the standard route, but there is a trade-off that catches people out.

You cannot introduce new evidence. The inspector decides on the material that was before the council, plus your appeal statement. So if the refusal reason is that the council never saw a proper section drawing showing the ridge height against the neighbouring roof, the appeal is the wrong place to fix that. Submit a revised application instead.

Appeal or resubmit

Refused applications fall into two groups. Those where the council is wrong on planning judgement, and those where the scheme needs changing. Only the first group belongs at appeal.

The fee regulations have long included an exemption allowing one further application on the same site within 12 months of a refusal or withdrawal in defined circumstances. Fee exemptions change, so check the current fee schedule on GOV.UK before you rely on it. Where the exemption applies, a revised application costs nothing in fees, gets decided in eight weeks rather than months, and lets you fix the actual problem.

Appeal when the officer's report and the decision notice reveal a disagreement about policy or about harm. Resubmit when they reveal a scheme that needs a smaller dormer.

Illustrative example. A rear extension refused on overshadowing where the council relied on a 45-degree assessment the applicant had never tested. The choice is a written representations appeal with a daylight note answering the 45-degree point, or a resubmission with the rear wall pulled in by 600mm. The second is faster and costs less. The first is right only if the assessment itself was wrong.

Before either route, work out which supporting documents the council expected in the first place. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports your site needs, browse the report types by category, or check what a report costs.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.