Serviced apartments, aparthotels and the C1 boundary

Whether a serviced apartment is Class C1 or Class C3 is decided by how the accommodation is actually occupied, not by what the operator calls it or how the letting platform describes it. A block marketed as an aparthotel whose units are let for six months at a time, with keys held by tenants and no meaningful service, is residential accommodation in planning terms. A block of identical flats let for three nights at a time from a staffed reception, with daily housekeeping, is not.

Most disputes in this area are about operators who want the C1 planning position and the C3 operating model at the same time.

What Class C1 covers

Class C1 is use as a hotel or as a boarding or guest house where no element of care is provided beyond what would take the use into Class C2. The class was written with a recognisable building type in mind: rooms let by the night, a reception, shared facilities, a housekeeping operation and guests with no security of tenure.

Nothing in that description requires an en suite or forbids a kitchenette. A hotel room with a microwave and a kettle is still a hotel room. But once a unit contains a full kitchen, its own front door off a common corridor and the everyday equipment of a household, the question is whether it has become a dwelling used as a dwelling, and the fixtures start to weigh against the operator.

Class C3 is use as a dwellinghouse, which includes a self-contained flat. It is the destination councils worry about, because it engages affordable housing policy, space standards, amenity standards and council tax.

Where a serviced apartment becomes a dwelling

The courts have treated this as a matter of fact and degree, and case officers apply the same approach. Four indicators do most of the work.

Length of stay is the first and the strongest. Nightly and weekly stays look like C1. Stays running to months, with the same occupier in the same unit, look like C3 whatever the contract says. The pattern across the building matters more than any individual booking.

Level of service is the second. A staffed reception with meaningful hours, daily or frequent housekeeping, linen and towel changes, a booking system rather than tenancy agreements, and the ability of the operator to move a guest between units all point to C1. An intercom panel, a key safe and a cleaner between lettings do not.

Whether the occupier has another home is the third. Guests with a principal residence elsewhere are consistent with C1. Occupiers for whom the unit is their only or main residence are not.

Physical arrangement is the fourth, and it is the weakest on its own. Self-containment does not make a flat, because serviced apartments are self-contained by definition. It matters as corroboration when the other three indicators are already pointing one way.

Length of stay and the conditions that control it

Because length of stay drives the analysis, it is the thing councils condition.

The common wording limits occupation by any one person or household to a stated maximum continuous period, often 90 days, and requires the operator to keep a register of occupiers with arrival and departure dates and to make it available to the authority on request. Some conditions add that no unit shall be occupied as a person's sole or main residence.

Read those conditions before the fit out is priced. A 90 day cap is unremarkable in a city centre aparthotel and lethal to a business plan built on corporate relocations of six to twelve months. The time to argue for a different figure is during determination, with occupancy data from comparable operations, not in a later application under section 73.

In Greater London there is an extra layer. Under the Greater London Council (General Powers) Act 1973, using residential premises as temporary sleeping accommodation for periods of less than 90 consecutive nights is a material change of use requiring planning permission, subject to the exemption introduced by the Deregulation Act 2015 which allows such use for up to 90 nights in a calendar year where the person is liable for council tax. That exemption has conditions attached to it and it is not a general right to run a short let business.

Council tax, business rates and what they prove

Rating and council tax treatment is evidence, and it is not determinative.

In England, self catering accommodation moves from council tax to business rates where the property is available for short term letting for at least 140 days in the previous and current year, and was actually let for at least 70 days in the previous 12 months. A property meeting those thresholds is being run commercially, which supports a C1 or commercial characterisation.

The reverse inference is weaker but still useful. Units sitting in council tax bands, with occupiers on the electoral roll and receiving post as residents, tell a story an enforcement officer will find persuasive.

Neither regime decides the planning question. The Valuation Office is not the local planning authority, and a rating list entry is not a lawful use.

Local policy on short term letting

Councils have moved from indifference to active policy on this in the space of a few years, and the direction of travel is consistent: protect housing stock, control amenity impacts, and get visibility of who is operating what.

Expect development plan policies resisting the loss of residential units to short term letting, particularly in London boroughs and in tourist cities. Expect amenity conditions on waste, noise and management. And expect scrutiny of the building's management arrangements, because the residential neighbours of an aparthotel complain about the same things every time: late arrivals, wheeled suitcases at 2am, bin misuse and parties.

A national registration scheme for short term lets in England, and a new use class for short term lets with associated permitted development rights, have both been announced. Neither should be treated as being in force until you have checked the current position on legislation.gov.uk and gov.uk, because announcement and commencement are different things.

Getting the position confirmed before you commit

The only formal way to establish that a proposed use is lawful is an application for a certificate of lawfulness of proposed use or development under section 192 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It is worth the fee and the eight weeks on any conversion where the fit out cost is substantial.

Where the answer is that permission is needed, apply for it properly rather than hoping the ambiguity holds. A Planning Statement for a scheme of this kind should set out the intended operating model in detail: average and maximum length of stay, the service offer, staffing hours, the booking and management system, and the conditions you are willing to accept. Offering a workable occupancy condition yourself is usually better than receiving one drafted by someone who has never run the operation.

Two related boundaries come up in the same conversations. Where the operator argues the building is somewhere between classes, our note on how councils decide what the planning unit is explains how the unit of assessment is fixed. And the analogous care boundary is covered in care homes and supported housing: C2 or C3.

Browse all 66 report types to see what a change of use application of this kind usually needs. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Use class questions turn on the facts of the individual case, and you should check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.