The document that decides what you can do to a London flat is not the planning system. It is your lease. A licence to alter a leasehold flat is the freeholder's formal written consent to carry out works, and it is needed long before anyone thinks about building control, let alone planning permission. Removing a partition wall, moving a bathroom, replacing carpet with engineered oak and taking out a chimney breast can all require it.
The expensive mistake is starting work and asking afterwards. A freeholder who finds out mid-project has every incentive to be difficult, and the consent you eventually get will be on worse terms than the one you would have negotiated up front. The second expensive mistake is discovering the problem at sale, when a buyer's solicitor asks for the licence you never obtained and the transaction stops.
Read the lease first, not the plans
Every lease is different, and the wording determines everything. There are three kinds of covenant about alterations and they have completely different consequences.
- Absolute covenant. "The tenant shall not make any alteration." No statutory protection applies. The freeholder can refuse for any reason or none, and can charge whatever a variation is worth to them. In practice most will still negotiate, but you have no leverage.
- Qualified covenant. "Not without the landlord's consent." This is the common one, and it is where section 19(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 bites: where the works amount to an improvement, consent cannot be unreasonably withheld. The courts read "improvement" broadly and from the leaseholder's point of view, so most renovation work qualifies.
- Fully qualified covenant. "Not without consent, such consent not to be unreasonably withheld." The statutory protection is written into the lease itself.
A freeholder can still attach reasonable conditions and recover reasonable costs even where consent cannot be refused. If you believe consent has been withheld unreasonably, the burden of proving that falls on you, not on them.
What normally needs consent
The lease usually distinguishes between structural works, works affecting services and cosmetic works. Assume you need a licence for:
- Removing or altering any internal wall. Even a stud wall, because the lease frequently defines the layout as demised and because the freeholder cannot know it is not load-bearing without a drawing.
- Moving a kitchen or bathroom. Particularly putting a wet room over a neighbour's bedroom, which is the classic refusal. Many leases contain an express prohibition.
- Anything touching soil pipes, risers, gas or the electrical intake. Communal services usually sit outside the demise entirely, so you are altering the freeholder's property, not yours.
- Replacing carpet with hard flooring. An extremely common lease term requires carpet with underlay across the whole flat apart from the kitchen and bathroom, and it is enforceable. Acoustic underlay and a written variation are the way through.
- Windows, external doors, air conditioning, extract ducts and anything on the roof or facade. Almost always outside the demise.
- Underfloor heating, which combines a floor build-up, a services alteration and a heat-loss argument with the flat below.
What generally does not need consent: redecorating, replacing a kitchen or bathroom in the same footprint with no service changes, and replacing internal doors. Check the lease anyway. Some leases in mansion blocks require consent for anything at all.
What the process looks like
The sequence is fairly consistent across London freeholders and managing agents.
- Written application with drawings. Existing and proposed plans, a specification, and a structural engineer's report where anything structural is involved. A vague description gets a slow answer.
- Undertaking for costs. The freeholder instructs a surveyor and a solicitor and asks you to undertake to pay their fees, whether or not consent is granted. Ask for a cap in writing before you sign it.
- Surveyor's review, and often a site visit, checking the structural case and the effect on other flats.
- Draft licence, negotiated between solicitors. This is where the conditions get set.
- Completion, usually with a deed executed by you, the freeholder and sometimes the management company and your mortgage lender.
Allow eight to twelve weeks for a straightforward flat and longer where a management company and a residents' association both have to be consulted. Costs vary enormously: on a simple non-structural scheme expect a few thousand pounds in the freeholder's surveyor and legal fees plus your own; on a structural scheme in a period building, considerably more. Where the covenant is absolute, a freeholder may also ask for a premium on top, and that figure is a negotiation, not a tariff.
Conditions you should expect, and read carefully
A typical licence will require you to complete the works within a defined period, to use a contractor with specified insurance, to work only within set hours, to reinstate on request at the end of the lease, and to indemnify the freeholder against claims from other leaseholders. Several are negotiable, and two are worth real attention.
The first is the reinstatement obligation. A blanket requirement to put everything back at lease end is unhelpful and often unnecessary; try to limit it to specified elements.
The second is the definition of the works. The licence consents to the drawings attached to it, and nothing else. If the scheme changes on site, which it usually does, you need a variation. Build that into the programme rather than discovering it at second fix.
The other consents that run alongside
A licence to alter is not a substitute for the statutory regime, and getting one does not mean you are clear to build.
- Building regulations apply to structural work, new drainage, electrics, heating and any change affecting fire safety or sound insulation between flats. Approval comes from the local authority or an approved inspector, not the freeholder.
- The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 applies inside flats far more often than people expect. Cutting into a party wall to take a beam, or work to a floor or ceiling that separates you from another flat, is notifiable. Notice periods are two months for party structure works and one month for excavation and line-of-junction notices.
- Planning permission is needed for external changes, and flats do not have permitted development rights, so anything outside the envelope is an application.
- Listed building consent is separate again and is a criminal matter if skipped. If the building is listed, read our guide to listed building interior alterations before anything else.
Work already done without consent
This surfaces at sale, almost without exception. The buyer's solicitor asks for the licence, there isn't one, and the options narrow to three: apply for a retrospective licence, which a freeholder is entitled to charge more for and is under no obligation to grant; take out indemnity insurance, which many lenders accept but which does nothing if the freeholder has already been approached; or reverse the work.
A freeholder who wants to enforce can apply to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) for a determination of breach under section 168 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, which is the step that has to come before forfeiture proceedings. Forfeiture of a valuable London lease is rare and courts grant relief readily, but the costs of getting there are real and usually recoverable from you under the lease.
If you bought a flat with unauthorised work already in it, deal with it early rather than at your own sale. A retrospective licence negotiated calmly costs a fraction of one negotiated against a deadline.
How to make consent likely
Freeholders refuse for a small set of predictable reasons: risk to the structure, risk to other leaseholders, loss of value to the building, and uncertainty about who pays if something goes wrong. Every one of those is answerable on paper.
Submit a complete application first time, with a structural engineer's calculations rather than assurances. Address the flat below explicitly in the acoustic and drainage detail. Name the contractor and attach their insurance. Offer a reinstatement bond if the works are significant. And keep the neighbours informed, because the objection that sinks a scheme usually arrives from another leaseholder rather than the freeholder.
Designing to the constraint from day one is much cheaper than redrawing at week ten. Our guides to the interior design project timeline and what an interior designer costs in London cover where consent sits in a programme and a budget, and period property interior design deals with the older building stock most affected. Start a conversation from the Vertigo Interiors homepage.
For the legal background, the Leasehold Advisory Service publishes free government-funded guidance on alterations and consent, and the text of section 19 sits in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 on legislation.gov.uk.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a licence to alter?
It is a deed by which a freeholder gives a leaseholder formal written permission to carry out specified works to a flat, on conditions. It sits alongside the lease and is usually signed by the leaseholder, the freeholder and sometimes the management company and your mortgage lender. It consents to the drawings attached to it and to nothing else.
Do I need a licence to alter to remove an internal wall?
In almost every leasehold flat, yes, and that includes stud walls. The lease normally treats any alteration to the layout as requiring consent, and the freeholder cannot know a wall is non-structural without a drawing and, usually, an engineer's report. Removing a wall without consent is the most common breach that surfaces years later at sale.
Can a freeholder refuse a licence to alter?
It depends on the covenant in your lease. Under an absolute covenant, yes, for any reason. Under a qualified or fully qualified covenant, section 19(2) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 means consent cannot be unreasonably withheld where the works are an improvement, and the courts interpret improvement broadly from the leaseholder's point of view. Even then the freeholder can impose reasonable conditions and recover its reasonable costs.
How much does a licence to alter cost?
You pay the freeholder's surveyor and legal fees as well as your own, typically on an undertaking given before the work starts. A simple non-structural application in London commonly runs to a few thousand pounds all in; a structural scheme in a period building costs considerably more. Where the covenant is absolute a freeholder may also ask for a premium, which is negotiable. Always ask for a written cap on the fee undertaking.
How long does a licence to alter take?
Eight to twelve weeks is realistic for a straightforward flat, from a complete application to a completed deed. It takes longer where a management company and a residents' association both have to be consulted, where the drawings arrive incomplete, or where the freeholder's surveyor wants a site visit and further information. Build the timescale into the programme rather than the contingency.
What happens if you do work without a licence to alter?
Usually nothing at all, until you sell. Then the buyer's solicitor asks for the licence and the transaction stalls, leaving you to negotiate a retrospective consent from a position of weakness, take out indemnity insurance, or reverse the work. A freeholder that chooses to enforce can seek a determination of breach from the First-tier Tribunal under section 168 of the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, and recover its costs from you under the lease.