Hotels, aparthotels and serviced apartments in Class C1

Class C1 of the Use Classes Order covers use as a hotel, boarding house or guest house where no significant element of care is provided. It does not cover hostels, which are sui generis, and it does not cover buildings where people live permanently, which are Class C3 dwellings.

Aparthotels and serviced apartments fall between those descriptions, and the classification decides whether affordable housing policy applies, which levy rate is charged, and whether the building can lawfully be occupied the way the operator intends.

What Class C1 covers and what it excludes

The class describes an operation rather than a building form. Visitor accommodation let for short periods, with services provided and without a resident taking up occupation as their home, is the core of it.

Three things sit outside. Hostels are sui generis and need permission for any move into or out of that use. Care provision beyond an incidental level takes a scheme into Class C2. And self-contained accommodation occupied as a home falls in C3, whatever the operator calls it.

The phrase about care exists to stop care homes being presented as guest houses. It rarely bites on a hotel scheme, but it matters for accommodation aimed at older visitors with support on site.

Where a serviced apartment sits

A serviced apartment has a kitchen, a bathroom, a lockable door and, often, a separate entrance. Physically it is a flat. The question is whether it is being used as one.

Councils look at how the operation actually runs.

Length of stay comes first. Accommodation let by the night or the week, with a booking system, reads as C1. Accommodation let on assured shorthold tenancies, or on stays measured in months, reads as C3.

Services come second. A staffed reception, housekeeping, linen changes, a booking platform, business rates rather than council tax, and no security of tenure all point to C1. Units sold or let with no services and no central management point the other way.

Then the physical arrangement. A block with a reception, a shared lounge and a single postal address behaves like a hotel. A block with individual letterboxes, separate utility accounts and no communal front desk behaves like flats.

None of these is decisive alone. An operator with a reception desk and three month lettings is arguing a weak case, and officers have seen that model often enough to test it.

Conditions restricting occupation periods

Where a council accepts C1 for self-contained units, it will almost always impose a condition limiting how long any one person may stay. Ninety days in any twelve month period is a common formulation, sometimes with a shorter limit and sometimes expressed as a maximum continuous stay.

Alongside it, expect a condition requiring a register of occupiers to be kept and made available to the council on request. That register is what makes the occupancy condition enforceable, and operators who treat it casually create a problem at the first enforcement enquiry.

Negotiate the length while the application is live. A ninety day limit works for extended business stays and relocations. A twenty eight day limit does not, and discovering that after permission is granted means a fresh application.

What follows from the classification

Affordable housing policies are framed around the provision of dwellings, so a C1 scheme generally falls outside them. That gap is exactly why councils scrutinise aparthotel applications in areas under housing pressure, and why some local plans now include specific policies on serviced accommodation.

Levy rates are set locally and often differ between hotel and residential uses, so read the charging schedule rather than assuming C1 is cheaper. Some schedules set a nil rate for hotels. Others do not.

The nationally described space standard applies to dwellings, so it does not bind C1 units, which is one reason serviced apartment schemes can achieve unit sizes that would fail as flats. Councils are alive to this, and it is another reason the occupancy condition matters to them.

Transport and servicing assessments differ too, because a hotel generates arrival and departure patterns, servicing movements and taxi activity that a block of flats does not. Deal with it properly in the Transport Statement rather than applying residential trip rates.

The short term letting question

Renting out a flat in permanent residential use as short term visitor accommodation raises a separate question: whether that amounts to a material change of use needing permission. In London, statutory provisions limit short term letting of residential premises to 90 nights in a calendar year before permission is required.

Government has consulted on a use class covering short term lets in England, alongside a registration scheme. Check whether either has been made and brought into force before you rely on it, because the position has moved several times and any article you read may be out of date on this point.

For an operator, the safest route is to apply for the class you intend to operate in and accept the condition, rather than running a C3 building as visitor accommodation and hoping nobody counts the nights.

Enforcement in this area is usually complaint led. Neighbours in a block notice suitcases, changing faces and late arrivals long before the council does, and a single well documented complaint can produce a planning contravention notice requiring the owner to state how the property has been used. Booking platform listings are public, dated and easy to match to an address.

Evidence that supports the claimed class

Put the operating model in the application rather than leaving it to be inferred.

1. The intended average and maximum length of stay, with supporting evidence from comparable operations where the brand or operator is known.
2. The services provided, listed, including reception hours and housekeeping frequency.
3. The occupancy agreement type, confirming there is no security of tenure.
4. Staffing numbers and shift pattern, which also supports the transport work.
5. How the register of occupiers will be kept and made available.
6. Whether an operator is already appointed, and on what terms.

Set that out in the Planning Statement with the classification argument made openly. Officers respond better to an applicant who identifies the C1 or C3 question and answers it than to one who describes the scheme as an aparthotel and moves on.

Where the operating model changes after occupation, the council can investigate whether a material change of use has occurred, and the unit of assessment it applies is explained in the planning unit and how councils decide what they assess. The parallel boundary question for care accommodation is covered in care homes and supported housing: C2 or C3.

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. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which documents the application is likely to need.