Planning contravention notice

A planning contravention notice is a request for information served under section 171C of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, used by a council when it suspects a breach of planning control and needs facts before deciding what to do. It is not enforcement action. It imposes no requirement to stop, change or remove anything, and there is no right of appeal against it, because there is nothing yet to appeal against.

What it does carry is a legal obligation to reply. Failing to respond within 21 days is a criminal offence, which is why a notice that looks like routine correspondence should not be treated as such.

What the notice requires

The notice can require the recipient to give information about operations being carried out on the land, about the use of the land, and about any matter relating to conditions or limitations attached to a planning permission. It can also require information about who has an interest in the land.

In practice the questions are specific and factual. When did the works start and finish. Who carried them out. What is the building used for. How many people occupy it. Whether any permission was granted and, if so, under what reference.

The council may also invite the recipient to a meeting or to offer their own account of the position, and the notice often includes an invitation to explain why permission was not sought. That part is optional. The factual questions are not.

Who may be served

A notice may be served on the owner or occupier of the land, on anyone else with an interest in it, and on a person carrying out operations on the land. On a rented property a landlord and a tenant may both receive one.

That breadth is deliberate. Councils often do not know who is doing what, and serving several people is how they find out. If you receive one about land you do not control, say so in the reply and explain what your interest actually is.

Section 330 of the same Act gives councils a separate power to require information about interests in land, and section 16 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 does something similar. A council chasing an absent owner will often use those powers alongside a contravention notice, which is why several differently worded letters can arrive in the same week about the same site.

Time limits and the offences

The response period is 21 days from service. Two offences sit behind it.

Failing without reasonable excuse to comply within the period is a summary offence. Knowingly or recklessly making a false or misleading statement in response is a separate and more serious offence.

Neither offence is theoretical, and prosecutions do happen, generally where someone has ignored repeated correspondence rather than where a reply was late by a few days. The sensible approach is to reply within the period even if the reply is partial, explaining what you do not know and when you can find out.

There is no privilege against giving the information, but the answers can be used in later proceedings. Anyone facing a complicated position, particularly one where immunity from enforcement may be in issue, should take advice before replying rather than afterwards.

How it fits into an investigation

The notice sits early in the enforcement process, usually after a complaint and a site visit and before any decision about formal action.

The typical sequence runs like this:

1. A complaint reaches the enforcement team, or an officer notices something.
2. A site visit, photographs and a check of the planning history.
3. A planning contravention notice where the facts are unclear, particularly the dates.
4. Assessment of whether there is a breach, and whether enforcement would be expedient.
5. A decision: no further action, an invitation to apply, or formal action.

Dates are usually the point of the exercise. Enforcement time limits mean that a breach which began long enough ago may be immune from action, and the council needs to know when things happened before it can decide. Time limits in England changed from 25 April 2024 under the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, so check the current position and how it applies to the date of the breach in question.

What usually follows

Most notices lead to no formal action. Councils investigate far more suspected breaches than they enforce against, because enforcement has to be expedient as well as justified, and a minor or harmless breach often fails that test.

That is not a reason to relax. Expediency is judged by the council, complaints from neighbours continue, and a file left open can be picked up again by a different officer months later. The position only becomes settled when the council writes to say it is taking no further action, or when permission is granted.

Where there is a breach that matters, the common outcomes are an invitation to submit an application to regularise the position, a breach of condition notice where a condition has not been complied with, or an enforcement notice specifying the steps required and a compliance period. Enforcement notices carry a right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate on specified grounds.

The timing point is worth repeating, because it changes the options available. Once an enforcement notice has been issued, section 70C allows the authority to decline to determine a retrospective application for the same matter. Applying before that stage keeps a route open that closes afterwards.

Responding to one

Answer the questions asked, in order, in writing, within the period.

Be accurate about dates and say where the date comes from: an invoice, a building control record, a photograph with metadata, a tenancy agreement. A reply that says works were completed "around three years ago" invites a follow-up, and a reply supported by a dated invoice usually does not.

Keep a copy of everything you send, and send it by a method that produces proof of delivery. If a prosecution for failing to reply is ever considered, the question will be whether you responded within the period, and a dated record answers it in one line.

Do not volunteer opinions about whether something needed permission. The council will form its own view and an incorrect concession from you does not help. Equally, do not assert that something is permitted development without checking it properly, because the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful is a Lawful Development Certificate.

Where the reply shows the works are likely to need permission, the useful next step is usually an application rather than an argument. A Planning Statement addressing the harm the council is concerned about, and a Design and Access Statement where the appearance is at issue, do more than correspondence does. You can browse the report types that a retrospective submission may need, and start a draft once you know which ones apply.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Enforcement positions turn on their own facts and on dates, so take advice from a qualified professional before replying to a notice if the position is complicated. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.