Completion notices: ending an unfinished planning permission

 

Planning permission comes with a deadline for starting, and almost none for finishing. Start the work in time and, as a general rule, the permission stays alive indefinitely while you take as long as you like.

A completion notice is the answer to that. It lets a council set a deadline after which the permission ceases to authorise any part of the development that has not already been carried out. Work completed under the permission before that deadline remains authorised.

It is rare, it is slow, and it is the bluntest instrument in the planning system. When it works, an owner is left with a half-built structure and no permission for it, which turns the whole thing into a breach of planning control overnight.

This page covers England, where the rules changed on 25 April 2024, and explains how Wales differs. It sits inside our wider guide to planning enforcement.

Whilst we are happy to give you some help via this page, it is often easier to consult a professional. If in doubt – STOP – and reach out to us. We are here to help. Contact us here. 

 

What a completion notice does

 

It sets a date, called the completion notice deadline. When that date arrives, the planning permission becomes invalid.

Not suspended, not under review. Invalid. Anything still unbuilt on that date has no permission behind it and cannot lawfully be built.

There is one important limit. Work already carried out under the permission before the deadline is not affected. So the notice does not make what you have already built unlawful; it stops you finishing it.

 

When a council can serve one

 

Two things have to be true. First, the permission has to fall into one of five situations. Second, the council has to hold a particular opinion.

The five situations are:

• an ordinary planning permission carrying the usual condition that work must begin within a set period, where the work did begin in time but has not been completed
• development begun under a simplified planning zone scheme, where the area has since stopped being a simplified planning zone
• development begun under an enterprise zone scheme, where the area has since stopped being an enterprise zone
• a permission under a neighbourhood development order, again begun in time but not completed
• a permission under a street vote development order, on the same basis

Notice what is missing. The work must have been started. A permission that was never begun does not need a completion notice, because it simply runs out on its own when the time to start expires.

 

The test the council has to apply

 

The council must be of the opinion that the development will not be completed within a reasonable period.

That is the whole test, and it is deliberately loose. There is no definition of a reasonable period and no list of factors. It is a judgement about the future rather than a finding about the past, which is exactly why it is arguable on appeal.

What it is not is simply a punishment for slowness. Evidence that a site is genuinely progressing can support the case that it will be completed within a reasonable period, while a long-dormant site with no clear funding, programme or contractor presents a very different picture.

 

You get at least twelve months

 

The deadline in the notice has to be at least twelve months after the notice was served. That is a floor, not a norm, and a council can allow longer.

There is a second rule for two of the five situations, the ordinary planning permission and the neighbourhood development order. If the notice is served before the period for starting work has even run out, the deadline has to be at least twelve months after the end of that period instead. In plain terms, a council cannot use an early notice to shorten the time you had anyway.

 

Who has to be told

 

A completion notice must be served on the owner of the land, on the occupier if that is somebody different, and on anyone else with an interest in the land which the council thinks is materially affected by the notice.

The notice also has to contain prescribed information about your right of appeal, along with any other information the regulations require.

A council can change its mind. It may withdraw a completion notice at any time before the deadline, and if it does it has to tell everyone who was served straight away.

 

The Secretary of State can serve one too

 

This is unusual and worth knowing about. If it appears to the Secretary of State to be expedient that a completion notice should be served on land in England, the Secretary of State may serve one, after consulting the council.

So a council that has decided to leave a stalled site alone has not necessarily ended the matter.

 

How to appeal a completion notice

 

There is a right of appeal to the Secretary of State, and it is wider than most planning appeals in one respect: you can appeal whether or not the notice was served on you.

The people who can appeal are the owner of the land, anybody else with an interest in the land, and a person who occupies the land under a licence.

There are three grounds, and only three:

• that you consider the development will be completed within a reasonable period
• that the deadline in the notice is an unreasonable one
• that the notice was not served on the people it should have been served on

The first two are the real ones. The first attacks the council’s opinion head on, and the second accepts the principle but argues about the date, which in practice is often the more winnable argument.

The detailed procedure, including how long you have to appeal, is left to regulations. Check what the notice itself says about the deadline and act on it immediately, because a completion notice is not something to sit on. Our general guide to planning appeals explains how appeals to the Planning Inspectorate work.

 

What happens while you are appealing

 

The notice has no effect while the appeal is running. It only bites once the appeal is finally determined or withdrawn.

There is a curiosity in the wording here, and it is our own reading rather than anything a court has decided. The subsection that suspends the notice refers to an appeal brought under the section that creates completion notices, rather than the section that creates the right of appeal. Read literally that is the wrong cross-reference, and the obvious intention is the appeal section. We would expect it to be read that way, but it is worth knowing the wording is untidy if an argument ever turns on it.

 

What the Secretary of State can do

 

Three outcomes, plus a tidying-up power:

• quash the notice, which ends it
• vary it by substituting a later deadline, which is the middle course and the commonest realistic hope
• uphold it with the original deadline

Any defect, error or misdescription in the notice can also be corrected, so long as the correction will not cause injustice to you or to the council. A drafting slip on its own is unlikely to save you.

The service ground is weaker than it looks. If somebody who should have been served was not, the notice does not have to be quashed if neither that person nor the appellant has been substantially prejudiced. Costs can be awarded on these appeals in the same way as at a public inquiry.

 

The 2024 change in England

 

Completion notices used to work differently, and a good deal of what you will find written about them online still describes the old system.

Under the old route a council served the notice but it did nothing until the Secretary of State confirmed it. That confirmation stage was the reason completion notices were so rarely used: it was slow, and councils were reluctant to start something they could not finish.

From 25 April 2024 in England the confirmation stage is gone. The council serves the notice and it stands unless somebody appeals. That is a real shift in the balance of power towards councils, and it is the single most important thing to understand if you are reading older guidance.

Two things carried over. A notice served under the old route before the change, and still waiting for confirmation, stays on the old track. And Wales was left out of the change altogether, so the older rules still run there.

 

How Wales differs

 

Wales kept the older system, and Parliament made that explicit by writing the words “in Wales” into each of the three older sections at the end of 2023. So the two countries now run genuinely separate schemes rather than one scheme with an exception.

Two of the differences are the opposite way round from what people expect.

The first is the twelve months. In England the clock starts when the notice is served. In Wales it starts when the notice takes effect, and a Welsh notice does not take effect until the confirmation stage is finished. So the Welsh owner usually ends up with considerably longer, not less, even though Wales is the one that kept the slower procedure.

The second is the challenge. There is no appeal against a completion notice in Wales, because there is nothing to appeal against until the notice is confirmed. What you get instead is the right to be heard. Anyone served can require a hearing before an appointed person, and the notice cannot be confirmed until that has happened. The notice itself has to allow at least 28 days to ask for it. It is a real protection, but it is a hearing rather than an appeal, and the two work quite differently.

Beyond that the schemes are close. The test a Welsh council applies is word for word the same one used in England. A notice must be served on the owner, the occupier and anyone else the council thinks will be affected, which is a slightly wider group than in England. It can be withdrawn at any time before the deadline. When it does bite the permission becomes invalid, and what has already been built is unaffected, exactly as in England. The Welsh Government can also serve a notice itself, after consulting the council.

One narrowing is worth knowing. Wales has three situations in which a notice can be served, against five in England, because the neighbourhood development order route was taken out of the Welsh version and street votes were never part of it.

 

Is there a cost?

 

There is no fee to receive a completion notice and none to appeal one.

The cost is in what happens next. If the deadline passes and the permission becomes invalid, finishing the building means applying for planning permission again, and that carries a fee. Our planning fees page sets out how those charges are worked out. If the council refuses that fresh application, you are into a normal planning appeal.

The bigger number is commercial. A part-built site with no live permission is worth considerably less than one with permission, and a lender may take a view long before the deadline actually arrives.

 

What it means if you are buying

 

A completion notice does not go on the council’s enforcement register, which only covers five specific kinds of enforcement action, and a completion notice is not one of them.

So if you are buying a part-built site, ask the question directly. Ask the seller whether a completion notice has been served, ask the council, and check the dates on the permission itself. Buying an unfinished development with a deadline already ticking is a very different purchase from the one you thought you were making.

 

Should you worry about one?

 

For most people, no. If you are a householder with a half-finished extension, this is not aimed at you and it is very unlikely to arrive. Councils have to serve a formal notice, allow at least a year, and then defend an appeal, all for a site where the harm is usually that something looks unfinished.

Where it genuinely matters is on stalled housing sites and long-dormant commercial schemes, especially where a permission is being kept alive by a token start with no intention of building out. That is exactly the situation the 2024 change was aimed at, and with the confirmation stage gone the tool is easier to use than it has been for thirty years. Expect to see it more often than you have.

If one lands, the two useful responses are to get building visibly, or to appeal on the deadline rather than the principle. Arguing that a site which has not moved for five years will suddenly be completed within a reasonable period is a hard case to make; asking for more time on a scheme that is genuinely funded and starting is a much easier one.

Completion notices: relevant legislation

In England the rules are sections 93H to 93J of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, inserted by the Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 and in force from 25 April 2024. Sections 94 to 96 are the older route. The same Act wrote the words “in Wales” into each of them, so they now govern Wales only, along with any notice served in England before that date and still awaiting confirmation. Check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of each page below before relying on the wording.

Section 93J(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 reads:

The planning permission to which a completion notice relates becomes invalid at the completion notice deadline (whether as originally specified or substituted on appeal under section 93I).

One change to section 94 is made but not yet in force, adding a street vote development order limb. It does not affect the England position described above.

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s93H: when a completion notice can be served, the twelve month minimum, who it goes to and withdrawal
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s93I: who can appeal, the three grounds and what the Secretary of State can do
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s93J: the effect of the notice, and the suspension of it during an appeal
• Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023, s112: the section that made the change, including what happens to notices already served
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s94: the Wales route, when a notice can be served and the twelve month minimum
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s95: confirmation in Wales, the right to be heard and the effect of the notice
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s96: the power to serve a completion notice in Wales centrally
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s91: the condition requiring development to begin within a set period

Other Enforcement Sections

 

 

 

Completion notice Page Updated: 22nd August 2026