Lawful Development Certificate, prepared and filed, £349.
If the council refuses, we refund our £349 fee in full. The council's statutory fee (£274 for a proposed extension or loft, £548 retrospective; £136 and £272 for an outbuilding) is paid to the council at submission and is not refundable, and a refusal usually closes off indemnity insurance as a fallback. That's why we screen hard before you pay. Panic-proof paperwork for your sale.
Check if your property qualifies →- 5 minute pre-validation against every GPDO clause, we tell you before you pay
- Drafted, filed and monitored inside the 8 week council clock
- Our intake checks are built on the permitted development rules and real Planning Inspector appeal decisions
Your buyer's solicitor just added weeks to your sale
You're selling your house. The buyer's solicitor spots an extension, loft conversion or garden office and wants proof it was lawful. That proof is a Lawful Development Certificate.
Without one, the sale stalls. Your solicitor's fallback is indemnity insurance, a cheap one-off policy that pays out only if the council ever takes formal enforcement action against the work (making you undo it, or prosecuting). That's rare. But the solicitor still needs the lawfulness question off the table before exchange.
A planning consultant charges £600 to £1,500 for the drafting alone, plus the council fee on top. Getting on for £900 to £2,000 all-in, four to six weeks to even start, no guarantee of outcome.
We're £349 plus the council fee (£274 for a proposed extension or loft, £548 retrospective; £136 and £272 for an outbuilding), start within 48 hours, and refund our £349 in full if the council refuses.
Priced certainty, not a promise of speed
Pre-validation
We screen your project against every clause of GPDO Part 1 Classes A, B and E, the same rules the council's planning officer checks. If your project can't win, we tell you before you pay.
Flat-fee pricing
£349 service fee + the council's statutory fee (£274/£548 for an extension or loft, £136/£272 for an outbuilding (proposed/retrospective)), captured up front as separate line items. No complexity surcharge, no per hour creep, no surprise add-ons.
Full refund if refused
The council has 8 weeks to decide. If they refuse, we refund our £349 in full. The council's statutory fee is paid to the council when we file and isn't recoverable from us, and because filing puts the work on the council's record, indemnity insurance usually stops being an option after a refusal. We screen for that before you pay.
Any council in England, three project types, householders only
Enter your postcode and we auto-detect your council. Class A (rear / side extensions), Class B (loft / roof alterations), Class E (outbuildings, including garden offices). No flats, no listed buildings, no Article 4 directions, no conservation areas.
The 8 week council clock is statute. What you're buying is what happens after.
Nobody can promise you a faster decision, and any service that does is setting up a disappointment. What we sell is the only thing that matters to your buyer's solicitor: a council issued certificate that settles the question permanently. Indemnity insurance doesn't. It pays if the council pursues you; it doesn't resolve the underlying lawfulness. An LDC does.
Full refund conditions
If your council refuses your Lawful Development Certificate — or the application is invalidated for any reason other than your misrepresentation or a failure to supply information we asked for — we refund our service fee in full within 14 working days, £349 on Standard, £449 on Express.
The council's statutory fee (£274/£548 for an extension or loft, £136/£272 for an outbuilding (proposed/retrospective)) is paid by us to the council on your behalf at submission and isn't recoverable from us, so it isn't part of the refund.
Filing also puts the development on the council's record. Most planning indemnity insurance policies require that the council has never been approached about the work, so if your application is refused, indemnity is usually no longer available to you as a fallback. We say this again on the payment step before you pay.
The guarantee doesn't apply where the council's refusal cites information you materially misrepresented at intake (undisclosed listed status, Article 4 Direction, live enforcement action), where you didn't respond to a case officer request within 10 working days, or where you changed the project after we filed and the refusal relates to the change.
Full detail in our Terms of Service.