Town Planning Consultant Insurance

Nearly every planning claim starts with a client believing they were told something more definite than they were.

A planning consultant is asked whether a site will get permission, and the honest answer is a judgement about policy, precedent, the authority's current position and the likely weight of objections. Clients, understandably, want a yes. Under commercial pressure, a carefully hedged opinion delivered in a meeting becomes a yes in the client's memory, and then they buy the land. When permission is refused, the client's position is that they relied on advice that it would be granted.

Which makes the written form of advice the whole defence. Give prospects with the reasoning attached: the policies considered, the precedents relied on, the risks identified, the matters that could change the outcome, and an explicit statement that the decision rests with the authority and cannot be guaranteed. Avoid percentages that read as certainty. And where advice is given verbally in a meeting, follow it in writing the same week, because the version that exists in writing is the version that will be examined.

Most planning work is recoverable if something goes slightly wrong. A few dates are not, and they are where the indefensible claims come from.

An appeal period that expires removes the route entirely; the client cannot appeal late and the refusal stands. A judicial review window closes. A condition requiring something before commencement is missed and development becomes unauthorised. A permission expires unimplemented and the whole application has to be made again under policy that may have moved against the scheme. None of these can be fixed by doing the work better afterwards.

So this profession needs the diary discipline of a law firm rather than of a design practice. Key dates recorded centrally when they arise rather than held in a case officer's head, entered by one person and checked by another, with escalating reminders rather than a single prompt, and a documented handover procedure when a file moves between staff or comes in from another consultant. Also a rule for what happens when a client does not respond to a recommendation to appeal, because silence running into an expiry date is a claim waiting.

A planning claim does not require a refusal. A permission with the wrong conditions attached can be just as damaging.

A consent can arrive with affordable housing requirements, contributions, levy liabilities, phasing restrictions, pre-commencement conditions, restricted hours or highway works that change the economics entirely. A client who was advised a scheme was viable and is now holding a consent they cannot build has a loss, and the fact that permission was obtained is no answer. Viability advice is particularly exposed, because it sits between planning judgement and development appraisal and small changes in assumptions move the conclusion.

So advise on the whole package rather than on the consent. Flag the contributions and conditions realistically expected rather than the best case, state the assumptions behind any viability position and who supplied the cost and value inputs, and identify pre-commencement conditions as a programme and cost issue at the outset. Where a client's appraisal depends on a contribution figure, make clear whether that figure is yours or theirs, because that distinction decides who carries an underestimate.

Planning advice has a shelf life, and claims arrive when advice is acted on long after it was given.

Development plans are reviewed, policies are replaced, housing land supply positions change, new guidance shifts the weight given to a consideration, and an authority's approach alters with a new administration. Advice that a site had good prospects under one plan can be plainly wrong under its replacement. If a client holds an appraisal from three years ago and acts on it now, the question becomes whether the advice was dated and caveated or whether it read as an open assessment.

Which is managed with two habits. Date advice visibly and state the policy position it was given under, including the plan and any emerging policy, so its currency is obvious on the face of it. And say explicitly that it should be revisited if not acted on within a stated period, or if the plan position changes. Where a client comes back to an old appraisal, review it rather than confirming it, because confirming dated advice adopts it afresh under today's policy.

Abortive cost is the shape of the claim here. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.