Sheila Moore v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Suffolk Coastal District Council [2012] EWCA Civ 1202
Moore 2012 is the leading Court of Appeal authority on when commercial holiday letting can amount to a material change of use from a dwellinghouse. It rejects both extremes: holiday letting does not always require planning permission, but neither can it never amount to a change of use.
The answer is a question of fact and degree, based on the actual character of the use taking place at the property.
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- Neutral citation
- [2012] EWCA Civ 1202
- Court
- Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
- Judgment date
- 18th September 2012
- Judge
- Lord Neuberger MR, Lord Justice Longmore and Lord Justice Sullivan
- Case number
- C1/2012/0873
What happened at St Audry’s House
St Audry’s House at Melton in Suffolk had been converted from part of a former hospital complex into a very large dwellinghouse with nine bedrooms.
From 1999 to 2007 it was occupied by a family. From May 2008 it was let commercially through Prestige Holiday Lettings for short-term holiday stays.
The property could accommodate up to about 20 people. Bookings were commonly for three, four or seven nights, with frequent weekend occupation and rapid changeovers between groups.
Suffolk Coastal served an enforcement notice alleging a material change from a Class C3 dwellinghouse to sui generis commercial leisure accommodation.
The question was the character of the actual use
The Court of Appeal began from a straightforward proposition.
Whether commercial holiday letting of a dwellinghouse amounts to a material change of use is a question of fact and degree in each case.
The planning authority or Inspector must look at the character of the lawful use and compare it with the character of the actual holiday-letting use.
There is no automatic rule in either direction.
Holiday letting does not always require permission
The court reviewed Blackpool Borough Council, where a house was used by its owner, family and friends and was also let to family groups for a limited number of weeks each year.
On those facts the Inspector had been entitled to find no material change of use.
This shows that a property does not automatically leave residential use merely because it is sometimes occupied by paying holidaymakers.
But holiday letting can be materially different from ordinary residential use
The pattern at St Audry’s House was much more intensive.
The Inspector identified several characteristics which distinguished the holiday-letting business from the property’s earlier use as a family home:
- frequent arrivals and departures
- associated traffic movements
- occupation by large groups of up to about 20 people
- groups brought together by shared interests rather than living as one household
- regular weekend and short-break occupation
- party, reunion and celebration activity
- greater potential effects on neighbouring residents
The Court of Appeal held that this was a lawful and, on the facts, clearly correct conclusion that a material change of use had occurred.
Moore 1998 did not create blanket protection for holiday lets
The owner relied heavily on the earlier Moore 1998 judgment.
That earlier case had held that ten self-contained units did not cease to be single dwellinghouses merely because they were let commercially for holidays and were not somebody’s permanent homes.
The 2012 Court of Appeal explained the limit of that decision. Moore 1998 rejected an incorrect legal test which treated holiday occupation as automatically incompatible with dwellinghouse use. It did not decide that every form of commercial holiday letting must remain within the same planning use.
Dwellinghouse character and material change of use are separate questions
St Audry’s House remained the kind of building which could properly be described as a dwellinghouse. It still physically provided the facilities needed for day-to-day domestic existence.
That did not prevent the way in which it was actually being used from becoming materially different in planning terms from its previous lawful residential use.
This distinction is crucial. Asking whether a building is capable of being a dwellinghouse is not the same question as asking whether its current pattern of occupation has produced a material change of use.
Large pre-formed groups are not automatically one household
The owner argued that holidaymakers arrived as pre-formed groups and therefore occupied the property in a way analogous to a single household.
The Inspector was entitled to reject that argument. Groups attending for yoga, cycling, reunions, parties and celebrations could share an interest without living together as a single household in the planning sense.
The household character of occupation is one of the factual features that can matter when comparing short-term accommodation with ordinary residential use.
Planning effects matter, but there is no single checklist
Moore 2012 is sometimes reduced to a checklist of traffic, noise and parties. That is too rigid.
Those matters were relevant because they helped reveal the different planning character of the use at St Audry’s House. Other properties may have very different patterns of occupation and effects.
The correct exercise remains one of fact and degree in the circumstances of the individual property.
The enforcement notice was upheld
The Court also considered whether the enforcement notice was too broad in requiring the commercial leisure-accommodation use to cease.
The owner had not put forward a workable narrower fallback which would end the material breach while allowing some lesser form of holiday letting to continue.
An Inspector is not required to invent an appellant’s fallback case or search around for a solution which has not been properly presented.
The appeal was therefore dismissed.
Why Moore 2012 matters for Airbnb and serviced accommodation
Moore remains central to modern short-term-let planning cases because it provides the legal framework rather than a numerical threshold.
There is no national rule saying that a particular number of nights, bookings or guests automatically causes a material change of use. Instead, the question is whether the character of the use has changed materially when viewed as a whole.
That can require evidence about the pattern of occupation, management, turnover of guests, household character, traffic, amenity effects and the way the property is marketed and operated.
Our broader practical guide is the serviced accommodation planning permission page.
Read the full Moore 2012 judgment
The approved Court of Appeal judgment is held in the Planning Geek case law library. Gold Members can open the protected PDF below.
Moore 2012 Case Law Page Updated: 9th September 2026