If you change anything in your flat, a new kitchen, a new bathroom, new flooring, there’s a chance you might have to rip it all out.
There are three separate permissions you might need, and if you haven’t got all three, you’re at risk. A lot of people assume owning a flat works like owning a house, where you can do what you want with the property. It doesn’t, and it’s a mistake I see all the time.
The 3 permissions flat owners miss
- 01 Landlord consentYour contract with the freeholder. Permission set by the terms of your lease. They can refuse outright, but depending on your lease you may have some rights.Does your lease let you?Licence to alter or deed of variation
- 02 Planning permissionFrom your local council, as the local planning authority. Flats don’t get the permitted development rights houses do.Are you allowed?Town and Country Planning Act 1990
- 03 Building regulationsThe safety sign-off. Confirms the finished work is safe, covering structure, fire, electrics and drainage. Signed off by a building control body.Is it safe?Completion or final certificate
Permission from your freeholder
This is the one leaseholders miss most often. Owning a flat doesn’t mean owning the building. You have a right to occupy a defined part of it for a set number of years, on the terms set out in your lease. That lease is a contract between you and your freeholder (or landlord), and it sets out what you can and can’t do to your flat.
The wording varies a lot. Some leases only restrict structural work, so you can’t knock down walls. Others are much wider and can stop you making changes as small as new flooring. Dig out your lease before any work starts.
Look for the words “with consent”
The phrase to look for is whether you can make alterations with consent. If it says you can, Section 19(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 is on your side. In effect, it says that where your lease requires consent for alterations, the freeholder can’t unreasonably withhold it. They can charge their costs for dealing with the application, such as their fees and solicitor’s fees, but they can’t refuse across the board.
If your lease doesn’t have that wording, the statutory protection doesn’t work in the same way. You should still ask before any work begins, but you’ll be asking from a much weaker position.
Licence to alter or deed of variation
If the freeholder gives permission, you’ll get a licence to alter, which records in writing exactly what you’ve been allowed to do. A licence to alter only covers changes to parts of the flat that are already yours under the lease, so a new kitchen, a refitted bathroom or new flooring.
Building out into loft space you don’t own is different territory, and so is knocking down a wall, because most leases don’t give you the walls, even one between two rooms inside your flat. A licence to alter can’t cover property that was never yours. Because you’re gaining property rights that weren’t in the original lease, you need a deed of variation. This formally varies the terms of the lease, usually with an updated lease plan showing the new footprint of your flat.
What happens in practice
A lot of people skip all of this and never tell the freeholder. Some don’t realise their lease says anything about alterations. Some were told by a builder that it would be fine, and some bought from a previous owner who did the work and never passed on any paperwork. Years later they come to sell or extend the lease, and the unauthorised alterations can stop the whole process until they’re resolved.
Planning permission from the council
The second permission goes through your local council’s planning department and comes from the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Planning decides whether a change to a building is allowed, given the look of the area, the effect on neighbours and the character of the building.
If you own a house, permitted development rights let you do certain things without planning permission, such as a small rear extension, a loft conversion within set limits or a porch. If you own a flat or maisonette, you don’t get those rights automatically. That means almost anything affecting the outside of a flat (an extension, replacement windows that look different, a balcony) will need planning permission. Internal non-load-bearing changes usually won’t, unless your building is listed or in a conservation area, in which case even internal work can need extra consent from the council.
Planning permission doesn’t cover the other two
People get planning permission, or the council tells them they don’t need it, and they crack on. That permission says nothing about your lease or building regulations. You can be holding a planning approval from the council while the same council’s building control department refuses to sign off your work on safety grounds.
The case that catches a lot of our clients out is when the council is also their freeholder. The same council is then acting in three capacities: as freeholder under your lease, as the planning authority and as building control. Unless you have all three permissions from three different teams, you don’t have the right to make the changes.
Same council. Three hats.
- Hat 1: as freeholderGrants your licence to alter, your landlord consent.
- Hat 2: as planning authorityDecides whether you need planning permission and grants it.
- Hat 3: as building controlInspects the finished work and signs it off as safe.
Building regulations sign-off
The third permission is building regulations, which come originally from the Building Act 1984. Your lease and planning decide whether you’re allowed to do the work. Building regulations are about whether the finished work is safe, which covers questions such as:
- If you knock down a wall, will the building still be structurally sound?
- Is the electrical work safe?
- If you move the boiler, will it vent properly?
- Does the work meet fire safety standards?
Sign-off comes from a building control body. That’s either the council’s own building control department or a private inspector, previously called an approved inspector and renamed a building control approver under the Building Safety Act. If you live in a tall residential building, the kind the legislation calls a higher-risk building, building control is handled instead by a single body, the Building Safety Regulator.
Who signs off building regs
- Council building controlThe council’s own department.
- Building control approverA private inspector, previously called an approved inspector.
- Higher-risk buildingsBuilding control is handled by the Building Safety Regulator.
Once the work is inspected and signed off, you’ll get a completion certificate or a final certificate, depending on who issued it. That piece of paper matters, as it shows a future buyer that the work you’ve done is safe.
Before you start any work
The worst outcome is spending thousands, or tens of thousands, of pounds and then being forced to undo it all. I’d take the three permissions in this order:
- Start with your lease, as it’s the most black and white. Check whether you need consent, and if you do, get it.
- Then check planning. For most leasehold flats this probably won’t be an issue, but checking now is always cheaper than fixing it later.
- Finish with building control, which is probably the most important of the three. If you rent the flat out, you’re risking the health and safety of the people living there, and if things go wrong you could be personally liable.
Already done the work?
If you’ve already done work on the flat and aren’t sure what paperwork you have, don’t worry. A lease extension can be a good time to resolve it, and you can book a free consultation call with our team. It’s not a sales call.
If you’d like to see where you stand first, request your free lease report. We pull details from over 30 data sources, including HM Land Registry, and it costs nothing.
