What happens if you break a section 106

A section 106 is a promise attached to a planning permission. It is a legal agreement between you and the council that goes with the land, not just with you, so whoever owns the site has to keep it. Most people first meet one as the affordable homes, the money towards schools or roads, or the play area a big scheme has to provide. This page is about the other end of it: what a section 106 breach is, and what the council can actually do if the promise is not kept.

The short version is that a section 106 breach is not the same as building without planning permission. It has its own rules. The council does not serve an enforcement notice for it and there is no stop notice. Instead it goes to court, or in some cases does the work itself and sends you the bill. We explain both below, and we also explain the one lawful way out: asking to change or lift the obligation.

What counts as a section 106 breach

A planning obligation can do four things: stop the land being used or developed in a set way, make you carry out set works, make you use the land in a set way, or make you pay the council a sum of money. A section 106 breach is simply failing to do what the deed says. Common examples are not paying a contribution by the date in the agreement, selling homes that were meant to stay affordable, or never building the open space or the road the scheme promised.

Because the obligation runs with the land, the council can enforce it against the person who signed it and against anyone who later takes over the land from them. If you buy a site with a section 106 already on it, you take on the promise. The only relief is where the deed itself says a person stops being bound for any time after they no longer have an interest in the land, so it is always worth reading the deed to see exactly who is on the hook and for what.

How a council deals with a section 106 breach

The council has a choice about whether and how to act, just as it does with other breaches. If it decides to act, it has two main powers written into the law.

The first is an injunction. The council can ask the court for an order making you do what you promised, or stop doing what you promised not to do. Where there has been a real breach of a planning obligation, the courts will usually be willing to grant one, so this is a serious remedy, not an empty threat. Ignoring a court order can put you in contempt of court.

The second applies where the promise was to carry out works on the land, such as building a road or laying out open space. If you do not do them, the council can enter the land, do the works itself, and recover from you what it reasonably spent doing so. It has to give you at least twenty-one days’ written notice before it comes on to the land. Getting in the way of the council’s workers once they are lawfully doing this is itself a criminal offence, punishable by a fine of up to level 3 on the standard scale, currently £1,000.

Where the promise was to pay money and the money is not paid, the council can also chase it as a debt through the courts, and the unpaid sum can be secured against the land. In practice a council will often write to you first and try to sort the breach out informally before it spends money on lawyers, so if you are struggling to meet an obligation the worst thing you can do is ignore the letters.

Is there an appeal against section 106 enforcement

No. There is no planning appeal against a council enforcing a section 106, because it is not an enforcement notice. If the council takes you to court you defend the case in court, and if you think the council has behaved unlawfully your route is the High Court, not the Planning Inspectorate. That is very different from building without permission, where you would have an enforcement notice and a right of appeal. If your problem is a refusal of an ordinary planning application, that is where our planning appeals guide comes in, but it does not apply here.

The lawful way out: changing or lifting a section 106

Sometimes an obligation stops making sense, or the scheme simply cannot carry the cost any more. The law lets you deal with that properly rather than just breaking the promise. You can agree a change with the council at any time, which has to be done by deed. Or, once the obligation is at least five years old, you can apply to the council to change it or to have it lifted altogether.

When you apply, the council can decide one of three things: leave the obligation as it is, lift it if it no longer serves a useful purpose, or change it if it would still do its job just as well in the changed form. If the council says no, or does not answer in time, you can appeal to the Secretary of State. The appeal decision is the end of the planning merits, but it can still be challenged in the High Court if there has been a legal error. There are limits: an application to change one obligation cannot pile a new obligation on to someone else, and where the obligation protects biodiversity net gain the council usually cannot lift it if doing so would defeat that gain.

Think about cost before you decide how to fix a breach. A fresh permission or a variation can bring its own charges, and the Community Infrastructure Levy can behave differently depending on the route you take, so it is worth checking the position on our fees page and taking advice before you commit. Often the cheapest and quickest answer is to talk to the council early and agree a sensible way through, rather than let a section 106 breach turn into a court case.

See also

• Section 106 agreement – what a planning obligation is and how one is set up
• Planning fees – how costs are dealt with
• Planning appeals – where you do and do not have a right of appeal

Relevant legislation if you face a section 106 breach

The wording that matters is in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Use the “Changes to Legislation” panel on each page to check it is current, as the planning Acts change often.

• Section 106 – planning obligations, and the injunction, works-in-default and 21-day notice powers
• Section 106A – changing or discharging an obligation, and the five-year rule
• Section 106B – appeal to the Secretary of State

Other Enforcement Sections

Section 106 Breach Page Updated: 22nd August 2026