Guide

Planning permission and building regulations: what is the difference?

Planning permission controls what a building looks like and how it affects neighbours and the area. Building regulations control whether it is safe and sound. They are two separate systems with two separate applications, and getting one is not getting the other.

The short answer

Planning permission is mostly about the outside: how big it is, where it sits, what it looks like, and what it does to the people next door and the street.

Building regulations are about the work itself: whether it stands up, whether it burns, whether it leaks, whether it is warm, whether the drains run and the wiring is safe.

Two systems. Two applications. At most councils, two different teams — Tandridge District Council states plainly that its building control team "is completely separate to the Planning team". A planning approval says nothing about whether the work complies with building regulations, and a building control sign-off says nothing about whether you were allowed to build it.

This is where jobs go wrong. Someone gets planning permission for a rear extension and assumes they are covered. Or they take out a wall internally, correctly work out that no planning permission is needed, and assume that means no approvals at all. The missing paperwork then turns up years later, in a solicitor's enquiries.

What planning permission actually controls

The Planning Portal puts it this way: "Planning seeks to guide the way our towns, cities and countryside develop. This includes the use of land & buildings, the appearance of buildings, landscaping considerations, highway access and the impact that the development will have on the general environment."

So: size, height, siting, materials, overlooking, overshadowing, access, and what the building is used for. It is decided by the planning department of the council for that address, against that council's own policies.

A great deal of ordinary house work never needs an application, because it is already permitted development — a general permission granted nationally rather than by your council. But permitted development has limits, and those rights can be taken away. More on that below.

If you needed planning permission and did the work without it, GOV.UK warns you can be served an "enforcement notice" ordering you to undo the changes.

What building regulations actually control

The Building Regulations 2010 set the minimum standards for the work. Schedule 1 divides them into parts, and the list is a fair summary of what building control is looking at:

Part A structure
Part B fire safety
Part C site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture
Part E resistance to the passage of sound
Part F ventilation
Part G sanitation, hot water safety and water efficiency
Part H drainage and waste disposal
Part J combustion appliances and fuel storage
Part K protection from falling, collision and impact — stairs, landings, guarding
Part L conservation of fuel and power
Part M access to and use of buildings
Part N glazing safety
Part O overheating
Part P electrical safety
Part Q security, Part R electronic communications, Part S electric vehicle charging

Building control does not care what colour the render is. It cares whether the beam over the new opening has enough bearing and enough fire protection.

One point worth knowing: if you are the owner of the building, it is ultimately you who may be served with an enforcement notice if the work does not comply — even if a builder did it.

The common jobs that need building regulations but not planning permission

This is the group that catches people out. On an unlisted house, the Planning Portal states: "You should not need to apply for planning permission for internal alterations including building or removing an internal wall." No planning application. Building regulations, very much yes.

Removing a load-bearing wall or forming a new opening. Structure and fire both apply. The Planning Portal says any new beam "should normally have at least 150mm bearing (overlap onto the existing wall) on each side of the opening", that the wall beneath the bearings is likely to need padstones to spread the load, and that a steel beam should normally be protected so it has 30 minutes' resistance to fire. It also advises speaking to a structural engineer or surveyor before starting.
Replacing windows and external doors. Thermal performance, ventilation, escape — "the opening should be sized to provide at least the same potential for escape as the window it replaces" — and safety glazing in critical areas, up to 800mm from floor level and up to 1500mm in and beside doors.
Putting a bathroom, shower room or WC where there wasn't one. Refitting an existing bathroom or kitchen "does not generally require building regulations approval", but "drainage or electrical works that form part of the refit may require approval". Create one in a room that never had one and approval is likely — drainage, extract ventilation, structure, electrics and fire safety all come into it.
Electrical work. Notifiable jobs include a new consumer unit, a complete new circuit, and alterations to existing circuits in a "special location". In England, special locations are the spaces around baths and showers.
Also on the list: replacing roof coverings, installing or replacing a heating system, adding extra radiators, and fixed air conditioning.

It runs the other way too, if less often — a change of use with no building work can need planning permission and no building regulations approval at all.

The two routes: full plans or a building notice

For work that needs building regulations approval, there are two ways in, and the choice matters.

Full plans. Drawings and calculations go in and are checked before anyone lifts a shovel. GOV.UK calls it "the most thorough option" — "You can expect a decision within 5 weeks, or 2 months with your consent." You get formal approval, which means the problems are found on paper rather than in the ground. This is the right route for anything structural or complicated: extensions, loft conversions, taking out load-bearing walls, anything where an engineer's calculations exist.

Building notice. No plans are submitted. "This type of application is only for smaller projects. You can start work 2 days after your notice has been submitted." The trade-off is real: "You do not get formal approval like you do with full plans." Everything is judged on site as it is built, and if it is judged wrong, it comes back out.

You can apply to your council's building control service or to a private registered building control approver. If you use a registered approver, "they'll tell your local authority about your work".

Or neither. If the contractor is registered with the relevant competent person scheme for that trade, they can certify their own work as compliant and notify building control — no separate application. That is the usual route for replacement windows and for much electrical and heating work. You should receive a certificate showing the work was done by a registered installer. Keep it.

On fees: "Local authorities base their fees on their costs", varying with the type of work, the number of dwellings and the floor area, while private approvers negotiate directly with you. They differ by council and they change — get the current figure from whoever you appoint.

Who inspects, and at what stages

Building control inspects at points, not continuously. Someone has to tell them when the work reaches each one.

In England you give notice of commencement not more than five days after the work counts as commenced, and notice of completion not more than five days after it is finished. Between those, the inspection stages are agreed with your building control body and typically take in the foundation excavation and the foundation itself before covering up, damp-proof courses, drains before they are covered and again on test, the structure, insulation, and completion. When a stage is reached, "the work should pause to give the authority time to make an inspection."

The rule that costs money if it is ignored: do not cover it up. "If the local authority is not informed of relevant stages of work for inspection it may, by notice in writing, require the work to be opened up for inspection." Concreting over a drain run nobody has seen is how a short job becomes a long one.

Worth being clear-eyed about what the inspections are. The Planning Portal says building control inspections "occur only at certain stages and do not constitute full site supervision", and that completion certificates "are therefore not a guarantee or warranty for the building work that has been carried out."

The completion certificate, and why it matters when you sell

When the work is finished and complies, the local authority issues a completion certificate. On a full plans application, GOV.UK says "You'll usually get a completion certificate within 8 weeks of completion of the building work, as long as it complies."

It is the document that proves the work was signed off, and the moment it matters most is the day you sell. GOV.UK is blunt: "Without approval you will not have the certificates of compliance you may need when you want to sell your home."

A buyer's solicitor will ask for the paperwork on the extension, the wall that was knocked through, the replacement windows, the new boiler, the rewire. No certificate means a delay while it is sorted out, an indemnity policy, or money off. Put every certificate — building control, and every competent person scheme certificate from every trade — in one folder on the day it arrives.

When it genuinely depends on your property

Some of this cannot be answered from a website, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not looked. What it depends on:

Listed building. "If you live in a listed building, however, you will need listed building consent for any significant works whether internal or external." That is a third consent, separate from both planning permission and building regulations.
Conservation area, area of outstanding natural beauty, national park, world heritage site. In these, "you will need to apply for planning permission for certain types of work which do not need an application in other areas."
An Article 4 direction. "The local planning authority may have removed some of your permitted development rights by issuing an 'Article 4' direction. This will mean that you have to submit a planning application for work which normally does not need one."
Flats and maisonettes. The householder permitted development rights "do not apply to flats, maisonettes or other buildings".
What has already been built. Earlier extensions eat into the permitted development allowances, and houses and flats created through permitted development "usually cannot subsequently use householder permitted development rights for additional development".

What settles it for your house: the listing entry if there is one, your council's policy maps and any Article 4 direction covering that street, and the planning history of the property itself. Check the address, not the street — conservation area boundaries and Article 4 directions can run down the middle of a road.

Who you deal with, locally

Planning always goes to the council for the address: Tandridge for Godstone, Oxted, Caterham, Warlingham and Lingfield; Reigate and Banstead for Redhill, Reigate, Horley, Merstham, Banstead and Tadworth; Croydon for Purley, Coulsdon and Kenley; Sevenoaks for Edenbridge and Westerham; Mid Sussex for East Grinstead; Mole Valley for Charlwood.

Building control is arranged differently. Tandridge, Reigate and Banstead, and Mole Valley share a single building control team — the Southern Building Control Partnership — so a job in Godstone and a job in Reigate go to the same service. Croydon, Sevenoaks, Mid Sussex and Crawley are not in that partnership and run their own building control services. And on any of these you can use a private registered building control approver instead of the council.

If the work has already been done

There is a route back. "Regularisation" is retrospective building regulations approval for work already carried out without consent. It is available from a local authority building control body only — not from a private approver — and only for "work carried out after 11 November 1985". Expect to open up parts of the work so it can be inspected.

On the enforcement side, two ten-year clocks run, and neither is a plan.

Planning: a single ten-year limit now applies to all breaches of planning control in England, for operational development substantially completed on or after 25 April 2024 or a change of use to a single dwellinghouse on or after that date. Building regulations: under section 36 of the Building Act 1984, as amended by the Building Safety Act 2022, a notice requiring work to be removed or altered "shall not be given after the expiration of 10 years from the date of the completion of the work in question."

Both are a long time to own a house with a question mark on it. It is cheaper and far less trouble to make the application before the work starts.

Common questions

Q.01I have planning permission. Do I still need building regulations approval?

Almost certainly, if the project involves building work. They are two separate approvals under two separate systems, usually handled by two different teams, and one never covers the other. Planning permission judges the size, siting, appearance and impact of what you are building; building regulations judge whether the construction itself is safe and complies. Assume you need to make both applications unless your building control body tells you otherwise.

Q.02Do I need planning permission to remove a load-bearing wall?

On an ordinary unlisted house, no — the Planning Portal is clear that internal alterations including removing an internal wall should not need planning permission. You will need building regulations approval, because the structure and the fire protection of the new beam are both controlled. If the house is listed, you will need listed building consent for any significant works, inside or out.

Q.03Should I use full plans or a building notice?

Full plans for anything structural or complicated — an extension, a loft conversion, removing a load-bearing wall — because the design is checked and formally approved before work starts, with a decision usually within five weeks. A building notice is only for smaller, straightforward projects; you can start two days after submitting it, but you get no formal approval and no protection if a decision goes against you on site. Anything with an engineer's calculations behind it should go in as full plans.

Q.04Do I need building regulations approval for a new bathroom?

Refitting an existing bathroom with new units and fittings does not generally need approval, though any drainage or electrical work forming part of the refit may. Putting a bathroom or shower room into a room that never had one is different — approval is likely, covering drainage, extract ventilation, structural stability, electrical safety and fire safety. Electrical alterations in the space around a bath or shower are notifiable in England whichever of the two you are doing.

Q.05What happens if I find old work at my house was never signed off?

You can apply for regularisation, which is retrospective building regulations approval, but only from a local authority building control body and only for work carried out after 11 November 1985. Parts of the work will usually need to be opened up so they can be inspected. It is worth dealing with before you market the house, because it is the buyer's solicitor who will ask for the certificate.

Q.06Who handles building control in Godstone, Oxted, Caterham and Redhill?

Tandridge, Reigate and Banstead, and Mole Valley share one building control team, the Southern Building Control Partnership, so those areas all go to the same service. Croydon, Sevenoaks, Mid Sussex and Crawley are not in that partnership and run their own. Planning applications are separate and always go to the council covering the address; you can also use a private registered building control approver instead of the council for the building regulations side.

Where this came from

Sources

Rules change. These are the pages this guide was written from — check them against your own property before you act on anything here.

More