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For buying agents & acquisition advisors

Know what the vendor knows
before you advise your client to commit.

Full planning history, enforcement records, agricultural occupancy conditions, title constraints and comparable intelligence — retrieved from portals that standard searches cannot reach. Before your client exchanges. Any UK property. 48 hours.

The acquisition intelligence gap

Your client is paying you to find
what everyone else missed.

Standard conveyancing searches check the land register. They do not check what was withdrawn from the planning portal, what enforcement history predates the current system, or what constraints are buried in a 1987 title register. These are the things vendors sometimes know and buyers do not — until after exchange.

Pre-offer assessment
Know the full planning record before you advise your client on whether to proceed and at what price. Enforcement history, withdrawn applications, agricultural conditions — intelligence that changes the negotiation before anyone has committed.
Negotiation leverage
A planning history report is documented evidence. If we find a CLEUD withdrawal the vendor has known about for years, an active enforcement notice, or a title restriction that limits development potential, that is a negotiating instrument — and protection for your client's position.
Your PI exposure
You recommended the acquisition. If a material planning issue emerges post-exchange that was in the public record — and you did not identify it — that is your professional liability. A Planning Decoder report is documented due diligence at £149–249 per site.
Live case · North Wales AONB · £249 · under 24 hours · anonymised

The seller knew for 18 years.
The buyer almost didn't find out until after exchange.

This is what acquisition due diligence retrieval looks like in practice — on a site that every standard search missed.

Full acquisition intelligence · Denbighshire AONB · £249 · under 24 hoursReal outcome
Why standard searches stopped here: Denbighshire runs on Civica Portal 360 — blocks all automated access at DNS level. CON29 checked the land register. It did not reach the council's planning database. Our proprietary systems queried the live database directly, retrieving 1,000+ records across the postcode cluster.

Found: Application 21/2007/0304 — a Certificate of Lawfulness withdrawal from 2007. The property's lawful dwelling status had never been confirmed. The seller had been aware for 18 years. Invisible to CON29, invisible to standard portal search.

Also found: A 1949 National Trust covenant and a 1982 Secretary of State restriction in the Land Registry title — both outside any planning portal, both material to any future development proposal on the site, and both undisclosed at point of marketing.

Outcome: Transaction renegotiated before exchange. Buyer had documented evidence. The vendor's negotiating position changed entirely. Report cost £249. The acquisition went ahead — at a materially different price.

Total cost: £249 · Turnaround: under 24 hours · Outcome: renegotiated before exchange · Client protected.

What we extract

Behind the portal.
Across the neighbourhood.

We don't stop at what the portal returns. We reach back into legacy systems, committee archives, title registers and enforcement records — and map the full planning landscape around the site.

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Portal bypass tooling

Proprietary systems that query live portals directly — including those with DNS-level blocks, JS-rendered systems, and session-based access controls that defeat every standard tool.

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Full cluster & neighbourhood

Every application in the postcode cluster — approved, refused and withdrawn. Comparable precedent identified, officer wording extracted, patterns mapped across decades.

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Committee PDF archives

Officer reports, committee meeting minutes, vote records, conditions in full. The arguments that worked and the ones that did not. Never in a standard search.

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Land Registry title analysis

Full title — covenants, restrictive conditions, access rights, registered charges. The constraints portals never show but that materially affect every case.

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Enforcement records

Live enforcement notices, planning contravention notices, stop notices. Pre-merger authority records. History that portals do not always surface but that materially affects every case.

Strategic direction

We read the data and tell you what it means. Where the LPA has consistently refused and why. What the comparable consents say about a viable route. Ranked and delivered.

The scenario that comes up repeatedly

The vendor has a development story.
The record tells a different one.

Rural property is regularly marketed with permitted development potential, conversion opportunity or extension capacity. The planning record tells you whether that story is accurate before your client makes an offer.

What vendors sometimes claim
Extensive Class Q permitted development potential on agricultural buildings
Residential conversion approved in principle at pre-application stage
No planning history of note on the property
Enforcement notice resolved years ago — nothing outstanding
The 4-year rule applies — occupation is now lawful
What the record sometimes shows
Article 4 Direction removes Class Q rights — no PD conversion possible
Pre-application advice was informal, negative and never disclosed
A CLEUD withdrawal in 2009 — lawful status of dwelling unconfirmed
Enforcement notice still live — breach of condition never discharged
The 10-year clock never started — no evidence of continuous occupation
Pricing

Less than one hour of your time.
More protection than any standard search provides.

Single report — retail
Site Intelligence Report
£149–£249
Simple to complex · 48 hours
Payment by Stripe before we start

  • Full portal extraction — including blocked and legacy systems
  • Withdrawn applications — CLEUDs, lawfulness, prior approval
  • Enforcement records — all authorities including pre-merger
  • Land Registry title — covenants, restrictions, conditions
  • Postcode cluster — all comparable decisions nearby
  • Committee PDF archive — officer reports, vote records
  • Professional PDF report — white-label available
Buying agents with regular acquisition flow
Multiple acquisitions a year?Volume pricing available.
Single report£149–249Pay before we start
4+ reports/monthfrom £50Per report, volume rate
White-labelIncludedAt volume
Commission an acquisition report →
Volume arrangements discussed after your first report. No rate cards published.
Commission an acquisition intelligence report

Tell us the property.
We scope, you decide. No payment upfront.

Submit the postcode and what you need to know before advising your client. We confirm scope, cost and turnaround. Payment by Stripe before we start.

Postcode of the site you need intelligence on.
The more context, the better we can scope the work. Max 600 characters.

Intelligence reports produced by Sierra21 Software Studio — the team behind Planning Decoder. Proprietary extraction systems that query planning portals at a depth most professionals cannot access manually.