Commercial to Residential Conversion Boom as Planning Permission Relaxed

Published / Last Updated on 10/08/2020

The Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2020 with effect from 1st September 2020.

Planning laws have seen their biggest changes since perhaps the Property Act 1925.  Planning permission requirements have been massively relaxed to allow for even greater property development without the need to seek planning permission from the local authority.

Relaxation of planning permission requirements has been given across both residential and commercial property and we believe this could be the solution to the high street crisis and the housing crisis.

Examples:

  • You can demolish and rebuild many residential and commercial “vacant or redundant’ buildings without planning permission provided it is used to develop residential accommodation.
  • There is now a wider range of commercial use type buildings that will be able to be converted to residential use without the need for planning permission.
  • It is much easier now to apply for change of use of commercial units or indeed build extensions to your residential home without the need for planning permission.

We suggest that this presents a massive opportunity for property investors both privately and using self invested pension schemes such as SIPP and SSAS to acquire commercial property.  That said, your pension fund could buy a commercial unit and develop for residential but the development would need to be sold (capital gains tax fee) just before it became habitable as pension funds cannot hold residential property.


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