Getting a planning fee refunded for non-determination
Regulation 9A of the 2012 Fees Regulations refunds the planning fee where an application is not determined in 26 weeks. An agreed extension of time removes the entitlement.
If a council has held your application for 26 weeks without deciding it, you are entitled to your fee back. The provision is regulation 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012, and a planning fee refund for non-determination is automatic in the sense that the duty sits on the authority rather than on you. In practice you will have to ask, in writing, and quote the regulation.
There is one thing that switches the entitlement off almost every time, and most applicants sign it without reading it: an agreed extension of time.
The refund provision and what triggers it
Regulation 9A was inserted to give teeth to what the government called the planning guarantee, the commitment that no application should take more than 26 weeks to resolve. It applies where a fee has been paid for an application and the authority has not determined it within 26 weeks of receiving the valid application.
The refund is the whole fee, not a proportion of it. That matters more on a small scheme than people assume. For a self-builder who has paid a full application fee for a new dwelling and then waited six months, the refunded fee covers a fair slice of the drainage work.
The refund does not affect the application. It carries on. The council still has to determine it, you still have your appeal rights, and the permission when it comes is worth exactly the same. You are being repaid for a service that was not delivered on time.
Counting the 26 weeks
Start from the date the authority received the valid application, not the date you pressed submit. If the application was registered as invalid on 3 March and validated on 24 March after you supplied a missing site plan, the clock starts on 24 March. Validation disputes are therefore worth resolving quickly for reasons beyond impatience.
Twenty-six weeks is roughly six months. Work out the date on the day you are validated and put it in the diary, because nobody at the council will remind you. Keep the validation email, since it is the only evidence of the start date you will have if the case officer changes twice.
What does not pause the clock is worth knowing. Consultation responses arriving late, a case officer going on leave, a committee cycle falling awkwardly, a re-consultation on amended plans, the council waiting for a section 106 agreement to be engrossed. None of these stop time running. Only an agreement between you and the authority does that.
What an agreed extension of time does to the right
Article 34(5) of the Town and Country Planning (Development Management Procedure) (England) Order 2015 lets the applicant and the authority agree in writing a longer period for determination. Councils ask for these routinely, often by email in week seven with a friendly note about wanting to reach a positive recommendation.
Signing one is a real decision. An agreed extended period replaces the statutory period, which means the refund entitlement is displaced and you cannot appeal for non-determination until the new date passes. The council has bought itself time at no cost, and you have given up both of your levers in exchange for goodwill.
Sometimes that is the right trade. If the officer is recommending approval and the delay is a highways consultation you also want, extend. If the delay is unexplained, or the officer has gone quiet, do not. Reply saying you are content for determination to continue but are not agreeing an extension, and keep the email.
Where you do agree, agree a date rather than an open-ended period, and agree it once. A second and third extension is how applications reach a year.
How to ask for the refund
Write to the planning department and copy the finance or income team, since planning officers often cannot process refunds themselves. Keep it short and factual:
- Give the application reference, the site address and the date of validation.
- State the date on which the 26 week period expired.
- Confirm that no extension of time was agreed in writing and that no appeal has been made.
- Quote regulation 9A of the 2012 Fees Regulations and ask for the fee to be refunded to the account it was paid from.
- Ask for confirmation of the date the refund will be processed.
If nothing happens in a fortnight, escalate to the head of development management and then to the council's corporate complaints procedure. This is a straightforward money claim about a defined sum, and complaints teams tend to resolve those faster than planning teams do.
Where the refund does not apply
The regulation contains exclusions, and the ones that catch people are these. An agreed extension of time under article 34(5) displaces the right. So does having already appealed against non-determination, because the application has left the council. Where the Secretary of State has issued a direction restricting the grant of permission, or has called the application in, the authority is prevented from determining and the position changes.
The refund also has nothing to say about pre-application advice charges, which are set locally and are not covered, or about the cost of the reports you commissioned. Those are gone regardless. Fees themselves are set nationally and indexed each April, so the figure you get back is the figure you paid, and you should read the current national schedule rather than an older one when you are budgeting. The same is true where an application straddles more than one category and the fee was calculated across several fee headings.
Appealing for non-determination instead
Once the statutory period or any agreed extended period has passed without a decision, you can appeal under section 78 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 against the failure to determine. The Planning Inspectorate treats it like any other appeal, the council files a statement explaining what it would have done, and an inspector decides the application.
Two things make this less attractive than it sounds. First, you lose the fee refund, because the exclusion bites. Second, and more seriously, you lose the negotiation. A case officer who was three weeks from recommending approval with conditions is replaced by an inspector reading a paper file, and any amendment you would have made in discussion has to be made formally or not at all. Appeal timescales also vary by procedure and application type, so check the Planning Inspectorate's current guidance on deadlines before assuming you are quicker.
There is one situation where a non-determination appeal is clearly right: where the council has effectively refused without saying so, and the reasons are policy reasons an inspector will take a different view on.
Choosing between the two
| Your position | Likely better route |
|---|---|
| Officer supportive, delay procedural | Agree a dated extension, keep the relationship |
| Officer silent, no committee date, week 24 | Refuse an extension, claim the refund at week 26 |
| Officer hostile on policy grounds | Non-determination appeal, accept the loss of the refund |
| Section 106 drafting is the only hold-up | Extend, because an inspector cannot complete the agreement either |
An illustrative example. A four unit scheme is validated on 2 February. The council asks for an extension in April, the applicant declines in writing, and no decision is issued by early August. The applicant writes quoting regulation 9A, the fee is refunded six weeks later, and permission is granted in October. The application was never harmed by the refund request, and the officer never mentioned it.
Where a case has drifted, a tightly written Planning Statement addressed to the outstanding objection is usually a faster route to a decision than any procedural step. The cost side of the same question comes up again when a permission is running out of time, which is covered in fees and charges when a permission is nearly expired.
This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the current fee regulations and the position with your local planning authority before relying on it.
See PlanScope pricing if you are budgeting the supporting documents alongside the application fee. Reports should be reviewed before submission, and we do not guarantee planning approval.
Frequently asked questions
When can I claim a planning fee refund?
Where the local planning authority has not determined a valid application within 26 weeks of receiving it, and no extension of time was agreed in writing. The entitlement comes from regulation 9A of the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications, Deemed Applications, Requests and Site Visits) (England) Regulations 2012. The whole fee is refundable, not a proportion of it.
Does asking for a refund harm my application?
No. The application continues exactly as before, the council still has to determine it, and your appeal rights are unaffected. The refund is repayment for a service not delivered within the period, and it has no bearing on the planning merits. Officers rarely raise it again once the payment has been processed.
Should I agree an extension of time?
Only where you are getting something for it. An agreed extension under article 34(5) of the Development Management Procedure Order replaces the statutory period, which displaces the fee refund and delays your right to appeal for non-determination. If the officer is supportive and the delay is a consultation you also want, extend to a fixed date.
When does the 26 week period start?
On the date the authority received the valid application, which is the validation date rather than the submission date. If an application is registered invalid and later validated, the later date governs. Keep the validation email, because it is usually the only record of that date you will hold if the case officer changes.
Can I claim the refund and appeal for non-determination?
No. Making a non-determination appeal under section 78 takes the application away from the council and removes the refund entitlement. Choose one. An appeal makes sense where the council is effectively refusing on policy grounds, and the refund makes sense where the delay is administrative and the officer is still supportive.
Sources and further reading
This article is general guidance about the planning system in England and, where stated, the rest of the UK. It is not legal or professional advice. Check your local planning authority’s validation requirements and take professional advice for your specific site.