Does planning permission transfer when you sell the land?

Planning permission is attached to the land, not to the person who applied for it. Section 75 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 says a grant of planning permission enures for the benefit of the land and of all persons for the time being interested in it, except in so far as the permission provides otherwise. So when you buy a plot with consent, you get the consent. There is no transfer form, no fee, and nothing to notify the council about.

That is the easy part, and it is where a lot of self-builders stop reading. The harder part is everything attached to the permission: the conditions, the obligations, the levy liability and the question of whether the permission is still alive at all.

The exception that does exist

A permission can be made personal, and where it is, the wording says so. The usual construction is a condition limiting occupation or the benefit of the permission to a named individual or to a defined class, imposed because the applicant's personal circumstances justified something that policy would not otherwise allow.

You see it on temporary accommodation for a rural worker, on some traveller site permissions, and occasionally on a use that would be unacceptable in principle but was allowed for a particular occupier. These permissions do not pass, and buying land in reliance on one is buying nothing.

Personal permissions are unusual and they are obvious on the face of the decision notice. Read the conditions in full rather than the summary. A permission "for the benefit of" someone, or one that ends when a named person ceases to occupy, is telling you what it is.

What is still alive, and how to tell

Every permission carries a time limit. The default is three years from grant to begin development, though the condition may say something else, and outline permissions have their own structure with time limits for reserved matters applications and for starting work after the last approval.

A permission is kept alive by a material operation carried out in accordance with it, before the limit expires. What counts is set out in statute and includes work of construction, digging foundation trenches, laying out a road and material changes of use.

The evidence you want from a seller, in order of usefulness: a certificate of lawfulness confirming the development was lawfully begun, a building control record with dates, dated site photographs, invoices from the groundworks contractor, and written confirmation from the council that pre-start conditions were discharged. That last one matters more than people think, because a start made in breach of a genuine pre-start condition can be an unlawful start, leaving the permission unimplemented when the clock runs out.

Where the position is uncertain and the deal depends on it, an application for a certificate of lawfulness of existing development under section 191 is the way to settle it. It costs a fraction of the value at risk.

Obligations and charges that come with the land

A planning obligation under section 106 is enforceable against the person who entered into it and against anyone deriving title from them. It is registered as a local land charge, so a search will reveal it, and the deed itself is usually available from the council.

Read it, rather than relying on the search summary. The things that change a valuation are the contributions not yet paid, the triggers that have already been reached, the affordable housing requirement and any restriction on occupation or disposal. On a plot that was once part of a larger site, check whether the obligation was apportioned or whether the whole burden sits on the title you are buying.

The levy is the one that catches self-builders. Liability for the community infrastructure levy attaches to the landowner when development starts, but the machinery runs on forms. A person who has assumed liability remains liable until that assumption is withdrawn or transferred. On a sale of consented land, the seller should withdraw its assumption and the buyer should assume liability, both before any work begins.

Self-build relief compounds the problem, because the relief is claimed by a specific person, on specific terms, and must be claimed and acknowledged before development starts. It is also clawed back if the disqualifying events occur within the following three years. A buyer relying on relief claimed by the seller is relying on nothing. The detail of assumption of liability and the surcharges is worth going through line by line before exchange.

The pack a buyer should ask for

1. The decision notice and every approved plan listed on it, at the revision numbers stated.
2. Every discharge of condition approval, with the reference and date.
3. The section 106 deed and evidence of what has been paid or performed.
4. All CIL notices: liability notice, assumption, commencement notice, demand notices and any relief claim with the acknowledgement.
5. Evidence of implementation, or confirmation that the permission has not been begun.
6. Any biodiversity gain plan approval, and the supporting metric and allocation evidence where off-site units were used.
7. Correspondence with the case officer that records agreed interpretations of conditions.

Item seven is the one sellers forget and buyers regret. An email confirming that the council accepts a particular material or a particular drawing as satisfying a condition is not binding in the way an approval is, though it is very useful when the same officer is still there.

Assemble the whole thing as a compliance file organised in the order above. Sellers who have one sell faster, because the buyer's solicitor can close the planning enquiries in a day rather than a fortnight.

An illustrative sale

Illustrative example. A single plot with full permission granted two years earlier, foundations dug and a building control initial inspection recorded. The seller assumed CIL liability and claimed self-build relief, then decided to sell. On completion the relief is at risk, because the buyer is not the person who claimed it. The parties deal with it by withdrawing the assumption, the buyer assuming liability and making a fresh relief claim before any further work, with the timing written into the contract. The sequence is illustrative and the council's own forms govern.

What does not come across

Building regulations approval is a separate system, and a full plans approval relates to the work rather than to the owner in quite the same way. Where an approved inspector was appointed, the arrangement may need formally reassigning.

Party wall awards, discharged utility agreements, section 278 agreements with the highway authority and any conservation covenant all have their own transfer mechanics. None of them follow automatically because the planning permission does.

If the scheme is changing after purchase, work out early which documents need refreshing. The report index is a quick way to see which supporting reports a revised proposal is likely to need, and Enter the site postcode on PlanScope to check the constraints on the plot before you commit.

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.