Sanctioning

What sanctioning is

Sanctioning is the route back for development that was carried out without the planning permission it needed. Rather than applying for ordinary permission for work still to come, you apply to regularise what has already been built.

How Perit Mercieca puts it

"If the changes to the property have already occurred without planning permission, then one does not apply for a regular planning permission, but applies to sanction the changes that were carried out without the planning application."

Why buyers need the word

Not everything is sanctionable. Some irregularities are easily rectifiable and fall within planning policy; others cannot be regularised at all, and those are the ones that greatly reduce a property's value. If you are buying a property with unpermitted work, the sanctioning question is the one that decides what you are actually taking on — see permit, sanction or development application.

Sources

• Perit Matthew James Mercieca — Yitaku Asks video (Architect Series, Cluster 3)
• Development Planning Act, Chapter 552 — regularisation of unauthorised development