Run on official data, built with chartered surveyor input

Every homeowner with a renovation in mind asks the same first three questions — can I build it, what will it cost, and is it worth it? Answering them properly used to take a consultant's afternoon. The data has been public for years; it was just scattered across a dozen government systems that don't talk to each other.

Planning Permission Checker connects them. It resolves an address, checks it against official planning constraint boundaries, pulls the real sold prices around it, and puts honest cost ranges next to the result — every figure cited, every limit stated. It is the pre-feasibility check to run before you spend money on advice.

The expert layer

Planning is a regulated field, so the methodology here is built with input from a RICS-regulated chartered surveyor: Savas Bulduk MRICS, Director of Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy (RICS Firm Reg. 923064). The deterministic engine establishes the facts from official data, and the published guidance is reviewed for accuracy. That review covers the guidance on this site — it is not an individual assessment of your property, and no page here is a survey, a valuation or a planning decision.

Where the site stops, and who takes over

A free check tells you what the data says. It cannot draw your scheme, argue your case with a planning officer, or inspect a wall. When you reach that point there are two doors, and which one you need depends on the job: Hampstead Architecture and Planning (ARB-registered architects) for design, drawings, planning applications, prior approval, lawful development certificates, appeals, listed building consent and Licence to Alter packages; and Hampstead Chartered Surveyors for condition and risk — building surveys, defect diagnosis, party wall notices and awards, dilapidations, and leasehold major-works advice.

Plenty of projects need both. A rear extension is designed and submitted by the architects, while the notices your neighbours receive under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 are the chartered surveyor's work — so we say that, rather than pretending one practice covers everything. Some projects also need structural engineering, legal advice or other specialist input.

How the commercial model works, plainly

Planning Permission Checker is free to use, sells nothing and does not sell your data. It used to sell per-property reports; that has been retired. The model is now the handoff: with your consent, a serious enquiry goes to whichever of the two practices you choose, and they quote you directly — we publish no fees on their behalf, because their fee is theirs to set. The two are separate companies, independently regulated — the architects by the ARB, the chartered surveyors by RICS — and neither of them is this site. They share a registered address with this site's operator, named in the footer; we say so plainly so you can weigh the referral for what it is. Keeping the portal accurate and neutral is the whole strategy — trust is what generates good enquiries. The methodology page documents exactly what every number is built on, and the terms set out the referral in full.

What Planning Permission Checker is not

It is not planning advice — it is intelligence for the moment before you pay for advice. Planning outcomes belong to local authorities; estimates here are ranges to be verified by qualified professionals. The site tells you when confidence is low rather than dressing it up. That honesty is the product.