Section 330 notice: do you have to reply?

 

A section 330 notice is a letter from the council asking who owns, rents out, lives in or collects rent for a piece of land. It usually lands because the council is looking into something that may have been built or started without permission, and it does not yet know who to write to.

It is not an accusation, it is not a bill, and it is not the council taking action against you. It is the council working out who the players are.

Three things matter, and they are why this page exists. You have to answer it. You normally get 21 days. And there is no right of appeal, so there is nothing to argue about at the Planning Inspectorate, only a decision about how you reply.

This page explains what the council can ask for, who can be sent one, what happens if you ignore it or answer it carelessly, and whether it stops the clock on the enforcement time limits. It sits inside our wider guide to planning enforcement. If this notice landed because somebody complained about your land, our page on being reported to planning enforcement sets out what happens next.

 

 

What a section 330 notice actually is

 

The council has a general power to demand information about land so that it can serve the right paperwork on the right person. Before it sends anything formal, it has to know who holds what interest in the land. This is how it finds out.

That is worth holding on to, because it explains the tone of the letter. The council is not saying you have done anything wrong. It may not yet know whether anything is wrong. It is asking who to talk to.

It is also not only an enforcement tool. The same power is used whenever the council is preparing a notice or order under the planning Acts, and it is available for listed building work too, where the more familiar planning contravention notice cannot be used at all.

 

Who the council can send one to

 

This is narrower than most people expect, and it catches councils out as well. The notice can go to two kinds of person:

• whoever occupies the land
• anyone who receives rent for it, whether the money reaches them directly or through someone else

That is the whole list. A freeholder who neither lives there nor takes any rent is not, on the face of it, someone the council can serve under this power. To reach that person the council has to use a wider power in a 1976 local government Act, which we come back to below.

 

Pinning down exactly who owns and who occupies a site matters because some notices have to be served on the owner and the occupier together, and one served on the wrong person can fail. A section 215 notice about the condition of untidy land works that way, which is one reason a section 330 notice sometimes lands first.

 

What it can ask you for

 

The questions are about interests and history, not about what you think of the development. The council can ask you to put in writing:

• what your own interest in the land is
• the name and postal address of anyone else you know to have an interest in it
• what the land is being used for
• when that use started
• the name and postal address of anyone you know to have used it for that purpose
• when any activity on the land began

Look hard at the last three. Dates and uses are not neutral facts. They are exactly what decides whether a breach is still enforceable, so the answers you give here can do real work later, for you or against you.

 

You get 21 days, and you must reply

 

The notice has to allow you at least 21 days from the day it was served. The council can give you longer, either by writing a longer period into the notice or by agreeing more time if you ask, and asking is received a good deal better than silence.

The reply must be in writing. A phone call to the case officer is not compliance, however useful the conversation.

 

What happens if you ignore it, or get it wrong

 

Both things that can go wrong here are criminal offences, and they are nowhere near equally serious:

• not replying, without a reasonable excuse, is dealt with in the magistrates’ court and carries a fine of up to level 3 on the standard scale, currently £1,000
• knowingly saying something untrue in your reply is far graver: it can be sent to the Crown Court, where it carries up to two years in prison, a fine, or both, and even if it stays in the magistrates’ court the fine has been unlimited since 12 March 2015

The gap between those two is the whole point. Saying nothing is a modest fine. Saying something false is the kind of offence that can end in prison. If you are unsure of an answer, the safe reply is to say what you know, say what you do not know, and say why

 

Does a section 330 notice stop the clock?

 

No. This is the misunderstanding worth clearing up, because people assume that any letter from the council freezes the countdown.

Breaches do not stay enforceable for ever. In England the council normally has ten years from the breach, after which the development becomes lawful and cannot be touched. The Act sets out, in one short list, what counts as the council taking enforcement action, and only the things on that list stop time running. In England they are an enforcement notice, a breach of condition notice, and, since 25 April 2024, an enforcement warning notice, which is the step where the council tells you to apply for permission instead.

A section 330 notice is not on that list. Neither is a planning contravention notice. The council can send you either one, read your answer and put it in a drawer, and the clock carries on running the whole time.

Two things genuinely do protect the council’s position:

• if the council has already taken, or tried to take, enforcement action over the same breach, it gets a further four year window in which to take more, even though the main period has expired
• if the breach was deliberately concealed, the council can ask a magistrates’ court for an order that reopens the time limit altogether

The first is easy to miss, because that four year figure survived the change to ten years in England, so the two numbers now sit side by side meaning different things. Our page on enforcement time limits takes both of them, and the periods themselves, in full.

 

There is no right of appeal

 

You cannot appeal a section 330 notice to the Planning Inspectorate. There is no form, no deadline and no fee, because the route does not exist. That is worth saying plainly, because people lose weeks hunting for an appeal that was never there.

What you can actually do:

• answer it, which is the ordinary and usually the right course
• ask the council in writing for more time if you need it, before the 21 days run out
• answer in part, and set out honestly what you do not know and cannot find out, which is the material for a reasonable excuse if it ever comes to that
• if you believe the notice is legally defective, for instance that it was served on someone the council has no power to serve, the only challenge is in the High Court by judicial review, and those deadlines are short

Our guide to judicial review explains that route and how fast it has to be started.

 

The other information notices

 

Three powers overlap here and they are easy to muddle:

• the section 330 notice, which is about who holds what interest in the land, and which can be used for listed building matters as well as ordinary planning
• the planning contravention notice, which goes much wider and asks what is actually happening on the land, but which cannot be used for listed buildings, conservation area consent, hazardous substances or protected trees
• a broader power in a 1976 local government Act, which the council can use for any of its functions rather than planning alone, and which reaches the freeholder, a mortgage lender, a leaseholder and a managing agent as well as the occupier, with a minimum of 14 days to reply rather than 21

A council investigating a suspected breach will often use more than one of these. A second notice arriving does not mean you answered the first one badly.

Letters are only part of it. The council can also come and look, and our guide to how a planning enforcement investigation works explains those powers: who may enter, why your home is treated differently, and what a magistrate’s warrant does and does not allow.

 

Is there a fee?

 

There is no fee to receive a section 330 notice and none to reply to one. It is served on you, not applied for, and answering costs you nothing but the postage.

Cost can arrive later, from whatever the investigation turns up. If it ends with you applying for permission after the event, or for a certificate confirming something is already lawful, then application charges apply, and our guide to planning application fees sets out how they work. The charge depends on the type of certificate and the development involved, so use the central fees guide for the current position rather than relying on a figure repeated here.

 

Should you answer straight away?

 

You have to answer. That part is not a choice, and anyone telling you to sit on it is giving you advice that can end in a prosecution.

What is worth thinking about is what you say and how you put it. Your reply is written evidence, in your own words, handed to the council, so it needs care. But the obligation to answer and the later admissibility of that answer in criminal proceedings are separate questions. A statutory information power can require potentially incriminating factual information, while the criminal court retains powers — including under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 — to exclude answers or evidence derived from them where admitting it would have an unduly adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings. Our page on an interview under caution explains that distinction and the relevant authority.

So the honest position is this. Answer it, answer it truthfully, and answer it inside the 21 days. But if there is anything on the land that might be a breach, and above all if the dates of use are what decides whether it is still enforceable, spend half an hour with someone who knows planning enforcement before you write the reply rather than after. Not to help you dodge the notice, which will not work, but because the difference between a careless answer and an accurate one can be the difference between a matter that closes and a matter that runs for two years.

If one of these has landed and you are not sure what to say, you can reach us via here to help.

 

 

Section 330 notice relevant legislation

The primary sources below are on legislation.gov.uk. Check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of each page for any amendments not yet incorporated into the revised text.

• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s330: the power itself, the 21 day minimum, and both offences
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s171A: what is a breach, and the closed list of what counts as taking enforcement action
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s171B: the time limits, and the further four year window where enforcement action has been taken or attempted
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s171BA: planning enforcement orders where a breach has been deliberately concealed
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s171C: the planning contravention notice
• Town and Country Planning Act 1990, s172ZA: enforcement warning notices in England
• Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976, s16: the wider power to obtain particulars of persons interested in land

Other Enforcement Sections

 

 

 

 

 

 

Section 330 notice Page Updated: 22nd August 2026