Appealing a completion notice on a part-built scheme

A completion notice appeal in planning is a rarer thing than most developers realise, because completion notices themselves are rare. Authorities have the power and use it sparingly, usually on a site that has sat half-built for years with no sign of movement and a street of neighbours complaining. When one does arrive it is serious: the notice brings the unimplemented part of a planning permission to an end.

The part already built stays lawful. Everything not yet carried out loses its permission, and finishing the scheme then needs a fresh application with whatever policy has changed in the meantime.

What a completion notice does to a permission

Section 94 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 allows a local planning authority to serve a completion notice where development has begun but, in the authority's opinion, will not be completed within a reasonable period. The notice states that the permission will cease to have effect at the end of a period specified in it, which cannot be less than 12 months from the date the notice takes effect.

The effect is partial rather than total. The permission ceases to have effect except so far as it authorises development carried out before the end of that period. Walls already built do not become unlawful. The remaining phases simply have no consent.

The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 makes changes to the completion notice regime, including when a notice may be served and how it takes effect. Verify the commencement position and the current procedure before acting on any of this; the position stated here is as at 13 October 2026.

Who serves it and when

The authority serves the notice on the owner and the occupier of the land, and on any other person it considers will be affected. In practice that includes anyone with a registered interest, which means a funder will know about it quickly.

Timing is the part developers misjudge. A completion notice is not a response to a missed deadline, because once development has lawfully begun within the three year period under section 91, the permission does not expire. The notice exists precisely because there is otherwise no mechanism to bring an implemented but unfinished permission to an end.

So the trigger is not a date. It is an authority forming a view that completion will not happen within a reasonable period, and that view usually forms after complaints, after a site visit, and after correspondence that went unanswered.

The right to be heard and the deadline

Under the long-standing procedure in section 95, a completion notice does not take effect unless it is confirmed by the Secretary of State, and the recipients must be given an opportunity of appearing before and being heard by an appointed inspector before confirmation. The Secretary of State may confirm the notice, substitute a longer period, or decline to confirm it.

Whichever version of the procedure applies to your notice, three things hold.

There is a deadline, it is short, and it is stated on the notice. Diarise it on the day the notice arrives.

The hearing or appeal is your only opportunity to put evidence. There is no later stage.

Doing nothing is fatal. An unchallenged notice takes effect on its own terms.

Grounds that succeed on a stalled site

The substantive question is whether the development will be completed within a reasonable period, and the answer has to be evidenced rather than asserted.

What carries weight:

• A signed building contract or a letter of intent with a named contractor and a start date.
• Funding evidence: a facility agreement, a term sheet, or board approval for internal funding.
• A programme showing the remaining works, with durations and a completion date.
• Discharge of outstanding conditions, which shows the scheme is being progressed on paper as well as on site.
• A clear explanation of why work stopped, where the cause was outside the developer's control.

What does not carry weight is an intention to complete at some point when the market improves. That is the position the notice is aimed at.

A secondary ground is worth remembering. Even where completion is uncertain, the specified period may be too short for the works that remain, and asking for a longer period is a narrower and often more achievable request than resisting the notice outright.

Evidence of intention and of funding

Intention is proved by expenditure and by contracts, not by statements.

Assemble the file before the hearing: the construction contract, invoices and payment certificates showing recent spend, correspondence with the contractor, materials orders, and any site records. A developer who can show £180,000 of work in the last six months is in a different position from one who can show a site compound and a padlock, and the figures in that comparison are illustrative rather than drawn from a real case.

Funding evidence is often commercially sensitive. Ask about confidentiality arrangements in advance rather than withholding the material and then having no answer when asked how the works will be paid for.

Reading how an inspector structures reasoning helps when preparing the case, and how to read a planning appeal decision letter applies to these decisions in much the same way as to a refusal appeal.

Effect on works already carried out

Work carried out before the notice bites remains authorised, which produces awkward outcomes on a part-built site.

A terrace with four of eight houses complete has four lawful houses and four part-built shells with no permission to finish them. The shells are not unlawful development, because they were built under a permission that was then in force, and they are not capable of being completed without a new permission.

The practical consequences follow quickly. Building control, warranty and insurance positions all need checking. Any section 106 obligations tied to the permission need reading, since obligations expressed to bind the land may survive. And on a site with partial occupation, the unfinished parts become a management and safety problem that the authority may pursue through other powers.

Managing a site to avoid a notice

The best defence is not needing one, and authorities rarely serve a notice on a developer they are in contact with.

1. Tell the authority when a scheme stalls, with the reason and an honest view of the timescale.
2. Keep discharging conditions. A site with live condition discharges looks like a project, not an abandonment.
3. Carry out visible maintenance: hoarding, site security, grass cutting and clearing fly-tipping. Most completion notices follow complaints about the state of a site rather than its incompleteness.
4. Where the scheme will change, apply under section 73 or submit a fresh application rather than leaving the old permission to decay.
5. Record what has been done and when, because the evidence file is far easier to build contemporaneously.

Where a fresh application is the answer, the policy case has to be made again from scratch against the current development plan, and a Planning Statement is the document that carries it. Policy may have moved considerably since the original permission, so check what has changed before assuming the same scheme is still acceptable. PlanScope drafts that statement and the rest of the supporting pack from the 66 report types in minutes, which shortens the route back to a valid application.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a resubmitted scheme is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, and the procedural position is as at 13 October 2026. Take legal advice on any notice served on you. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.