Building a compliance file after permission is granted

The buyer's solicitor will ask for the decision notice, the approved plans, every condition discharge decision, the levy paperwork and the building control completion certificate. Those documents all exist at some point during the build. What almost never exists is a single place where they were kept.

Reconstructing the file three years later means requesting copies from the council, chasing a contractor who has moved on, and in the worst cases buying indemnity insurance for a condition that was actually complied with but cannot be evidenced. That last outcome is common on self-build projects and it is entirely avoidable.

Start the file on the day the decision notice arrives.

Why it matters at sale

Conveyancing enquiries on a property that has been extended, converted or newly built follow a predictable pattern. The buyer's solicitor wants evidence that the works were lawful, that the conditions attached to the permission were complied with, and that any financial obligations were discharged.

Where the evidence is missing, the practical outcomes are a delay while copies are sought, a retention from the purchase price, or an indemnity policy which the buyer's lender may or may not accept. None of those is fatal. All of them cost money and goodwill at the point in the transaction where you have the least room to argue.

Enforcement time limits are relevant but they are not a substitute for records. The limits under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 have been amended by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, with commencement staged, so check the current position rather than relying on a remembered four year rule. And breach of condition has never been cured by time in the way people assume.

What to keep, and in what form

Keep everything as a dated PDF in one folder, backed up somewhere that is not the laptop you are using on site.

• The decision notice, and the full schedule of conditions
• Every approved drawing, with its number, revision and the council's stamp or reference
• The validation acknowledgment and the application reference
• Every condition discharge decision notice, and the documents that were approved under it
• The correspondence with the case officer, including any email agreeing an interpretation
• Building control paperwork: the initial notice or full plans approval, inspection records, and the completion certificate
• Levy documentation, in full
• Any section 106 agreement and the certificates or evidence confirming each obligation was met
• Warranty documents, the energy performance certificate, and the electrical and gas certificates
• Party wall awards and any easement or access agreements

Name the files so that someone who has never seen the project can order them. A prefix with the date in year, month, day format does that automatically.

Photographs, dates and site records

Photographs are the evidence people wish they had. They cost nothing and they answer questions no document can.

Take a set before work starts, showing the site from each boundary and the condition of anything that will later be argued about: the existing building, trees, boundary treatments, the state of the highway verge. Then photograph each stage that will be buried, particularly foundations, drainage runs, damp proof courses, insulation and any tree protection fencing while it is in place.

Tree protection is worth singling out. Where a condition requires protective fencing to a plan prepared to BS 5837:2012, a dated photograph of the fencing in position is the only practical evidence that it was ever installed, and it is exactly the evidence an arboricultural officer will ask for during a site visit.

Record dates. A short site diary noting when each stage happened, who was on site, and when inspections took place turns a folder of photographs into a chronology.

Condition discharge, and the paperwork it generates

Each discharge application produces a decision notice and a set of approved documents, and both matter. The decision notice proves the condition was discharged. The approved documents prove what was approved, which is what a future occupier needs when a condition requires something to be maintained in perpetuity.

Two habits are worth forming. Cross-reference each discharge decision against the numbered condition in the original permission, so that the file shows at a glance which conditions are cleared and which are outstanding. And keep the submitted documents as well as the approved ones, because the difference between them occasionally matters.

Where a condition required compliance rather than approval, for instance a condition requiring works to be carried out in accordance with an approved method statement, the evidence is your own records. Photographs, delivery notes, contractor sign-offs and correspondence.

The levy paperwork, which is unforgiving

Community Infrastructure Levy administration is the part of this that catches self-builders hardest, because the reliefs are lost through procedure rather than through eligibility.

The pattern is fixed. Liability has to be assumed before development begins. Any exemption or relief has to be claimed and granted before development begins. A commencement notice has to be served before development begins. And for the self-build exemption there is a second stage after completion, with supporting evidence to be submitted within a set period, followed by a period during which the dwelling must remain the owner's principal residence.

Miss a step and the exemption falls away, surcharges apply, and the full charge becomes payable. The forms and the deadlines are published by the council on its levy pages and the current versions should be taken from there.

Keep every form you submitted, every acknowledgment, every demand notice and every receipt. Keep the completion certificate and the evidence you supplied for the second stage claim. Then keep them for the full period the exemption requires, because a disposal within that period can trigger a clawback.

Biodiversity, drainage and the obligations that outlive the build

New development now often carries obligations that continue for decades. A biodiversity gain plan approved under the Environment Act 2021 regime brings habitat management and monitoring for at least thirty years, evidenced by monitoring reports submitted at the intervals the plan specifies. A Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment and the approved gain plan both belong in the file, along with every monitoring report as it is produced.

Sustainable drainage features carry maintenance obligations of a similar character, and where a management company is set up to hold them, the file should include the company documents and the maintenance schedule.

These are the documents a buyer's solicitor increasingly asks about and that vendors increasingly cannot produce.

Handing the file over

At completion, or at sale, produce an index. One page listing what is in the file, in the order a solicitor will want it: decision notice, approved plans, conditions and their discharge, levy, obligations, building control, warranties, certificates, ongoing obligations.

Then hand over the whole folder rather than a selection. A buyer who receives an organised set of records asks fewer enquiries, and a lender that can see the conditions were discharged does not ask for an indemnity policy.

If you are starting a project rather than finishing one, the full list of report types is a reasonable way to see which conditions are likely to require a technical document, and a Planning Statement prepared at the outset usually names most of them. PlanScope pricing is one free report, £50 per report, or Professional at £150 a month for unlimited reports.

This is general guidance rather than 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.