Change of Use DrawingsFrom £895
How much do change of use drawings cost in London?
Change of use drawings for a London building start at £895 from us, which includes the measured survey visit, and the council charges £610 for most changes of use. The total then turns on what the building is becoming, because a house split into flats, a shop turned into a home and a house turned into a shared HMO follow different rules.
The short answer: our fee, then a council fee that depends on the change
Our change of use drawings start at £895. For that we survey the building, draw the existing layout and the proposed one, show the new use room by room, and submit the application. Larger or more complicated buildings are quoted from that starting point once we have seen them.
The council's fee for a material change of use of a building or land, apart from conversions into homes, is £610 (fees schedule, category 14). A change of a building to housing is charged per dwelling instead, £610 each when fewer than 10 are created.
- Our change of use drawings
- £695
- Our measured survey visit
- £200
- Total
- £895
Which kind of change you are making
A change from a shop or office to a home is the one most Londoners ask about, and it is charged per dwelling. A single house becoming two or more homes is the second, and the law is explicit that the use as two or more separate dwellinghouses of any building previously used as a single dwellinghouse involves a material change in the use. Our post on flat conversion drawings covers that case.
A third is a house changing from a family home to a shared one. The Use Classes Order puts a dwellinghouse in Class C3, which includes use by not more than 6 residents living together as a single household. Past that, the use is something else and the question is whether the council needs to be asked. Our HMO conversion drawings deal with that route.
What the drawings must show
The council needs to see what is there and what you propose, drawn to an identified scale with north marked, and the right ownership certificate completed (Planning Practice Guidance). For a change to residential use, it also reads the plans for room sizes, daylight, outlook and access, because those decide whether the homes would be fit to live in.
A change of use to residential also brings the fire requirement into play: there must be appropriate provisions for the early warning of fire, and appropriate means of escape in case of fire. A shop with a stair from the street may need that stair rethought, which is why we survey the escape route before we promise a layout.
When the council can say no
A council can refuse a change of use on policy grounds even where the drawings are perfect: protecting shopping frontages, protecting family homes, or restricting shared housing in an area covered by an Article 4 direction. These are local tests, so the same building can get different answers in different boroughs.
That is why the survey visit includes a policy check on your address, and why we tell you if a change is a long shot before you pay the council. If the answer is no, the better route is sometimes a smaller change, and we will say so.
What comes after approval
Approval for a change of use is permission to use the building differently, not permission to build. Any internal alterations still need building regulations approval, and our building regulations drawings start at £745; the post on what they cost covers building control's separate charge.
Our change of use drawings page shows the service, and our guide to permission for a change of use sets out the tests in more detail.
Sources
Every figure in this article, where it comes from and a link to the original.
- £610: Statutory fee from 1 April 2026, fees schedule category 14: material change in use of a building or land (other than categories 12 and 13). assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
- £610: Statutory fee from 1 April 2026, fees schedule category 12(2)(a): change of use to fewer than 10 dwellinghouses, per dwellinghouse. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
- involves a material change in the use: TCPA 1990 s55(3)(a): (source wording: "the use as two or more separate dwellinghouses of any building previously used as a single dwellinghouse involves a material change in the use of the building"). www.legislation.gov.uk
- not more than 6 residents: Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 Sch Class C3(b): (source wording: "by not more than 6 residents living together as a single household"). www.legislation.gov.uk
- appropriate means of escape in case of fire: Building Regulations 2010 Sch 1 Part B1: (source wording: "appropriate provisions for the early warning of fire, and appropriate means of escape in case of fire"). www.legislation.gov.uk
- identified scale: PPG Making an application, para 023: (source wording: "Any plans or drawings must be drawn to an identified scale"). www.gov.uk
Questions people ask
Is the council fee included in your price?
Do I pay VAT on your fee?
Do all changes of use need planning permission?
Can you tell me whether the council will approve it?
Do you draw the building regulations set too?
Photographs: David Howard (CC BY-SA 2.0); Bruno Martins (Unsplash License).
Change of Use Drawings: a fixed fee from £895
Read more on the change of use drawings service page, or send your address below and we reply within one working day.
Change of Use Drawings
from £895
£695 drawings + £200 survey (£895 total)
Every price is the full fixed fee you pay. No VAT is charged. Council application fees are paid to the council separately.
What you get
- Measured survey of the building, included in the fee
- Existing and proposed plans showing the new use room by room
- A check of your council's policy on the change for your address
- Application forms, ownership certificate and submission
- A clear answer on whether the change is worth applying for