The enforcement register: what your council must publish

 

Every council in England has to keep a public list of the formal enforcement action it has taken. It is called the enforcement register, anyone can look at it, and looking costs nothing.

Most people never hear about it until one of two moments. Either they are buying a property and their solicitor finds an entry against it, or they are being prosecuted and their solicitor checks whether an entry exists, because in one particular situation that single fact decides the case.

This page explains what has to go on the enforcement register, what is recorded about each item, what never appears on it at all, and when an entry comes off. It covers England, and 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. 

 

Who keeps it and why it exists

 

The duty falls on district councils, metropolitan district councils and London boroughs. If you live in a two-tier area, the county council has to pass its enforcement information down to the district so it ends up in one place.

The register has to be open to public inspection at all reasonable hours. There is no application to make and no reason you have to give.

The point of it is simple. Enforcement action attaches to land rather than to a person, so it follows the property to the next owner. A public list is how the next owner is supposed to find out.

 

What has to go on the enforcement register

 

Five things, and the list is fixed by the Act rather than chosen by the council:

• planning enforcement orders, which are the court orders used where a breach was deliberately concealed
• enforcement warning notices, the letter inviting you to apply for permission before formal action starts
• enforcement notices
• stop notices
• breach of condition notices

If a council has issued one of those, it belongs on the register. There is no discretion about it.

 

What is recorded about an enforcement notice

 

This is the entry most people end up reading, and it is more detailed than they expect. The rules require all of the following:

• the address of the land, or a plan showing where it is
• the name of the council that issued the notice
• the date it was issued
• the date copies of it were served
• a statement or summary of the breach alleged and of what the notice requires, including how long you have to do it
• the date the notice was due to take effect
• whether that date was put back by an appeal, and when the appeal was finally decided or withdrawn
• the date any stop notice tied to it was served or withdrawn, with a summary of what it banned
• the date, if there is one, on which the council accepted that steps to repair the harm to the area had been carried out

That eighth point is worth noticing. A stop notice does not get an entry of its own. It is recorded inside the entry for the enforcement notice it belongs to, which is why searching a register for stop notices as a separate category will not get you anywhere.

 

Breach of condition notices are on there too

 

They are, and the rules set out exactly what has to be recorded: the address, the council that served it, the date of service, enough detail of the planning permission to identify it, and a summary of the condition that was not complied with together with what the notice requires and how long is allowed.

This matters because a breach of condition notice carries no right of appeal to the Planning Inspectorate. People sometimes assume that a notice with no appeal is somehow a lesser thing that stays private. It is not. It goes on a public register like the rest.

 

Enforcement warning notices were added in 2024

 

The enforcement warning notice is a newer tool, and it was brought onto the register on 25 April 2024.

What gets recorded is the address, the council, the date of issue, the date copies were served, a summary of the breach alleged, and the date by which an application for planning permission has to be received.

The oddity is worth flagging, because it is our own reading of the wording rather than something anyone has ruled on. The rule that says information must go on the register within fourteen days lists the paragraphs covering orders, enforcement notices and breach of condition notices. It does not mention the paragraph that was added for enforcement warning notices. The same is true of the rule requiring a county council to pass its information down to the district. On the face of the drafting, neither deadline reaches an enforcement warning notice. We would not build anything on that, but it is there.

 

What is not on the register at all

 

This is the part that surprises people, and it cuts both ways depending on which side of it you are standing.

None of the following appear on the enforcement register in England:

• a temporary stop notice, even though it can shut an activity down immediately
• a section 215 notice about untidy land
• a planning contravention notice
• a section 330 notice asking who owns the land
• an injunction obtained by the council in the High Court or the county court
• a listed building enforcement notice, which is dealt with under a different Act

So a clean enforcement register does not mean a clean site. It means nobody has issued one of the five registrable things. A property could have had a temporary stop notice, a tidy-up notice and an injunction against it and still show nothing here.

If you are buying, that is the practical lesson: the register is a floor, not a ceiling. Ask the council directly about enforcement history rather than relying on the register alone.

 

When an entry comes off

 

Entries have to be removed as soon as reasonably practicable, but only in the specific circumstances the rules allow:

• a planning enforcement order comes off if it is rescinded, or if its enforcement year runs out without any enforcement action being taken
• an enforcement notice, and any stop notice attached to it, comes off if the enforcement notice is quashed by the Secretary of State or withdrawn by the council
• a breach of condition notice comes off if it is quashed by a court or withdrawn
• an enforcement warning notice comes off only if it is quashed by a court

Read that last one twice. Every other item can come off because the council withdrew it. The enforcement warning notice cannot. On the wording as it stands, a council that issues one and then decides not to proceed has no route to take the entry down, and only a court quashing it will clear it.

Notice also what is missing from the whole list. Complying with a notice is not a reason to remove it. Do everything an enforcement notice asks, in full and on time, and the entry stays exactly where it is. That is the single most common misunderstanding about this register, and it is the one that costs people money at the point of sale.

 

Why the register decides some prosecutions

 

Here is where it stops being paperwork.

If you are prosecuted for failing to comply with an enforcement notice, there is a defence for a person who was never served with a copy of it. But the defence has two limbs and you need both: you must not have been served, and the notice must not be on the register. Only then can you go on to show that you did not know it existed.

So a notice sitting on the register closes that door completely, whether or not anything was ever posted to you. Our page on what happens if you ignore an enforcement notice goes through the offence and both defences in full.

 

How to look at it

 

Start with your council’s website and search for the enforcement register or the planning enforcement register. Many councils now publish it online, though not all of them do, and some publish only part of it.

If you cannot find it, the law is on your side. Every register has to include an index that lets you trace an entry by the address of the land, so you can search by property rather than by case number. The register has to be kept at the council’s main office, or, if the council prefers, split so that the part covering an area is held somewhere in or convenient to that area. Ask the planning department where it is held and how to see it.

 

Is there a cost?

 

Looking at the enforcement register is free. It is a public register and inspection is a right, not a service you buy. A council may charge for copies, and a solicitor doing formal searches when you buy will charge you for their time, but the underlying inspection costs nothing.

Costs arrive if an entry turns out to matter. Sorting out an unresolved breach may mean applying for permission after the event, or applying for a certificate to confirm that what is there is lawful. Both carry a fee, and our planning fees page sets out how those are worked out.

 

What if the entry is wrong?

 

There is no appeal against a register entry, because the entry is not a decision. It is a record of a notice, and the thing you can challenge is the notice itself.

If the notice is still within its appeal period, appeal it. Our page on the enforcement appeal grounds covers what you can argue, and our general guide to planning appeals explains how appeals run. Win, and the notice is quashed, and the entry has to come off.

If the problem is that the entry itself contains a factual error, or records something that should have been removed, write to the council and ask them to correct it. If they will not, the only route left is judicial review, which challenges the way a council has behaved rather than the planning merits, and which has very short deadlines.

 

Should you check it before you buy?

 

Yes, and not only through your solicitor.

A standard local search will pick up registrable enforcement action, but searches are ordered late, cost money and answer the question that was asked. Looking at the enforcement register yourself costs nothing and can be done the same afternoon you first view a property. If something is there, you want to know before you have paid for a survey.

What you are looking for is an entry that has never been removed. Because compliance is not a reason for removal, an old entry does not by itself mean there is a live problem. It means there is a question, and the question is whether the notice was complied with, quashed, withdrawn, or simply left. Ask the seller for evidence, and ask the council whether it considers the notice satisfied. An unanswered enforcement notice is one of the few things that can make a lender walk away.

The enforcement register: relevant legislation

The duty to keep the register is section 188 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. What actually has to be recorded is set out in article 43 of the Development Management Procedure Order, which applies in England only. Wales has its own equivalent. Check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of each page below before relying on the wording.

Section 188(1) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 has six paragraphs, and these are the five that apply in England, the sixth being the Welsh enforcement warning notice. It requires a register containing prescribed information with respect to:

(za) to planning enforcement orders,

(zb) to enforcement warning notices under section 172ZA (enforcement warning notice: England),

(a) to enforcement notices;

(b) to stop notices, and

(c) to breach of condition notices

which relate to land in their area.

A change has been made but is not yet in force. Schedule 1 to the Planning (Consequential Provisions) (Wales) Act 2026 will remove the Welsh limbs from section 188. That does not affect England.

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s188: the duty to keep the register, what it covers and public inspection
• Development Management Procedure Order 2015, art 43: the information required for each type of notice, removal of entries, the index and the fourteen day deadline
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s179: the offence, and the defence that depends on the notice not being on the register
• SI 2024/453: the 2024 amendments that brought enforcement warning notices onto the register

Other Enforcement Sections

 

 

 

Enforcement register Page Updated: 15th August 2026