A planning register is one of the few genuinely open public records in the property system. Anyone can search it, it is free, it holds the drawings and the officer's reasoning as well as the outcome, and almost no buyer looks at it before making an offer.
Find the right register
Planning is decided by the local planning authority, which is usually the district, borough or unitary council. Search for the council name and "planning applications" and you will land on its register.
- England and Wales. Each council runs its own portal. Most use one of a handful of systems, so the search screens look similar even when the branding does not.
- Scotland. Councils publish their own registers, with applications submitted through ePlanning Scotland.
- Northern Ireland. A single planning register covers all councils.
Search by postcode, not by full address. The point of the exercise is to see the street, and an address search hides exactly the applications you most want to find.
What is in a record
Each application has its own page, and the documents on it are more useful than the summary. Look for:
- The application form and plans. What was actually proposed, drawn to scale.
- The officer's report. The council's own reasoning. On a refused application this is where you learn what the council objects to, in its own words, which is a good predictor of how it will treat your version of the same idea.
- The decision notice. Approval or refusal, with the conditions attached.
- Neighbour objections. Occasionally the most informative document in the file, and the only place you will read an unfiltered account of the street.
What to look for as a buyer
Refusals on the property
If you are buying with a plan, check whether that plan has been tried. A refused rear extension, loft conversion or basement dig on the same property tells you a great deal about your own chances, and the reasons given are usually structural rather than fixable: overshadowing a neighbour, altering a street frontage in a conservation area, exceeding what the council's policy allows on that plot.
Approvals on neighbouring properties
This is the check that changes offers. A permission granted next door for a two storey extension, a loft dormer or a change of use is public, dated and specific. It will not be in the particulars, and it will not be in your solicitor's standard search.
An approved application that has not been built yet is still live for around three years from the decision in England and Wales. "Nothing has been built" is not the same as "nothing is coming".
Conditions that restrict what you can do
Read the conditions on any approval affecting the property. The one to watch for is the removal of permitted development rights, common on new estates and on approvals in sensitive locations. It means the extension you assumed you could build without permission now needs an application.
The same effect comes from designations rather than conditions. Conservation areas and Article 4 directions both strip out permitted development rights across an area, and both are shown on the council's policy map rather than in the planning register.
Enforcement and unapproved work
Look for enforcement notices in the register. Separately, compare what the register says exists with what the listing photos show. An extension or a loft conversion with no corresponding approval means one of three things: it was permitted development and needed no application, it is old enough to be immune from enforcement, or it is a live problem.
In England the immunity period is now ten years for all breaches occurring on or after 25 April 2024, with the previous four year limit preserved for building work substantially completed before that date. Where work is immune, the owner can apply for a lawful development certificate, and the existence of one turns an awkward conversation into a document.
Building control, which is not planning
Planning permission and building regulations approval are separate systems with separate records. A loft conversion can have planning permission and no completion certificate, and the missing certificate is the one that holds up a sale. Building control records are held by the same council but usually under a different search.
What the register will not tell you
- Anything before roughly 2000. Most online registers start there. Older applications sit in paper archives, and the planning department will search them on request.
- Enforcement that was never formalised. Complaints resolved informally may leave no public trace.
- Whether approved work was built to the approved drawings. That is a question for a survey.
Where this fits
Planning history is one of the checks Rooph runs on any listing you paste. It reads the register for the property and the surrounding street, and reports approvals, refusals and anything still live, alongside flood risk, lease terms and sold comparables.
See a full sample report, or read what a listing doesn't tell you for the rest of the gaps. If you want to know what your solicitor covers once you are under offer, conveyancing searches explained sets out the boundary.