The Planning Application and the Home It Describes

A renovation, an extension or a new build usually requires permission, and the application for it is public. In seeking to change a property, an owner often places a detailed description of it, and of themselves, on an open record.

A planning file can be unusually revealing. It may carry architectural drawings, floor plans, the location and layout of a home, the value implied by the works, and the names of the owner and their advisers. It is, in effect, a guided tour available to anyone who looks.

The exposure is both privacy and security. Plans that show the interior of a home, its access points and its grounds are precisely the detail a person would not hand to a stranger, yet the application hands it to everyone.

The work still needs doing and the permission still seeking. The useful response is to know what a given application discloses, to understand what can lawfully be redacted or held back, and to plan around the visibility rather than be surprised by it.

We read what a client's property filings, planning included, place on the public record, so the picture of a home and its owner is understood before it is assembled by someone with another purpose.