When a second application is free after a refusal

If your application has been refused, you can usually submit one further application on the same site without paying another fee, provided it is of the same character and description, made by the same applicant, and submitted within 12 months of the earlier decision. The concession sits in the planning fees regulations and applies once. It is not a right to keep resubmitting until something sticks, and councils check the conditions carefully before accepting a nil fee.

What the concession covers

The exemption is available after a refusal, after a withdrawal, and after an appeal against the council's failure to determine. The 12 months runs from the date of the decision notice, the date of withdrawal, or the expiry of the determination period, depending on which applies.

Four conditions have to be satisfied together. The further application must relate to the same site. It must be made by, or on behalf of, the same applicant. It must be for development of the same character or description as the earlier application. And it must arrive within the 12-month window.

The earlier application must also have been a chargeable one that was paid for. You cannot claim a free application off the back of an application that was itself free, which is what stops the concession running indefinitely.

The same character and description test

This is where most claims fail, and the test is applied by the council rather than by you.

A redesign that keeps the same use, the same broad scale and the same position on the site will usually qualify. Reducing a two-storey rear extension to single storey, changing the roof form, moving a window, altering materials, or pulling an extension back from a boundary are all changes within the same character.

What tends to fall outside it is a change of use, a change in the number of units, a substantially different site area, or a scheme so altered that the council would describe the development differently on the decision notice. If you find yourself rewriting the description of development, the concession is probably gone.

The red line matters. Extending the application site to bring in extra land changes the site, and some authorities treat that as fatal to the claim even where the building is similar.

The 12-month window and how it is counted

The clock runs from the date on the decision notice, not from the date you received it, and not from the date the officer told you the recommendation. Where the earlier application was withdrawn, it runs from the date of withdrawal confirmed by the council.

Twelve months sounds like plenty and is not. A householder redesign needs a conversation with the architect, revised drawings, possibly a fresh survey, and a pre-application discussion if the refusal was contentious. Book the work in the first month rather than the eleventh.

Where the deadline is close, submit within the window even if the drawings could be better. An application received on day 360 with a small revision left to make is in better shape than a perfect one on day 370, because the second one costs the full fee.

One free application per permission

The concession is available once against each earlier chargeable application. Use it, and the next application on that site attracts the full fee again.

That has a strategic consequence worth thinking about before you spend it. If your refusal turned on a single design point that the officer has clearly explained, and you are confident the revision answers it, use the free application now. If the refusal turned on something contested, where the council's position may change after a pre-application discussion or after the adoption of a new local plan policy, holding the concession back can be the better play. There is no way to pause the 12 months, so this is a judgement rather than an option.

Note also that a free statutory fee is not the same as a free submission. Where you apply through the Planning Portal, the Portal's own service charge is separate from the statutory fee and is still payable. Check the current figure at the point of submission.

Where a council disputes eligibility

Claims are refused more often for procedural reasons than for substantive ones. Deal with that by claiming clearly.

1. State in the covering letter that the application is submitted under the fee exemption for a further application of the same character.
2. Give the earlier application reference and the date of the decision or withdrawal.
3. Confirm the applicant is the same person or entity, and explain any change of agent.
4. Describe in two sentences what has changed from the refused scheme and why it remains the same character.
5. Attach a comparison of the refused and revised drawings if the changes are extensive.

If the validation team says the fee is payable, ask which limb of the test they consider unsatisfied. There is no right of appeal against a validation decision, so the exchange has to be resolved by discussion. Where the programme matters more than the money, pay under protest, say so in writing, and ask for a refund once the point is agreed.

Choosing between a resubmission and an appeal

Both routes are open after a refusal, and they suit different problems.

A resubmission is right where the refusal reason can be designed out. It is faster, the determination period is eight weeks for a householder application, you keep control of the scheme, and the case officer already knows the site. It also lets you respond to the officer's report, which usually explains the objection more clearly than the reasons for refusal do.

An appeal is right where the council has misapplied policy, where the objection cannot be designed out without losing the point of the project, or where the relationship with the authority has broken down. It takes months rather than weeks and it puts the decision with someone who has never seen the site before.

Running both is legitimate. Lodging an appeal to protect the deadline while a revised application is determined happens often, and it costs nothing extra beyond the work.

A Planning Statement that addresses the previous refusal directly, reason by reason, is the single most useful document to submit with a resubmission. Where the refusal pointed at missing technical evidence rather than at design, work through the report types index to identify what was absent. PlanScope's pricing is one free report, £50 per report, or £150 per month for the Professional tier, which sits separately from the statutory application fee.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Fee exemptions are set out in the national fees regulations and applied by each council, so check the position with your local planning authority 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.