The planning conditions were never discharged

What the council can do about it

The planning authority can serve an enforcement notice or a breach of condition notice. A breach of condition notice requires specified steps; failing to take them within the period given is a criminal offence punishable by a fine.

The point that matters most to a buyer is in the Lexsure wording below: a notice served on the seller does not follow the seller. The authority can serve a fresh notice on you after you own the property, and then it is your problem to remedy.

Whether it will is a different question from whether it can. Authorities have discretion, resources are finite, and most undischarged conditions are never pursued. That is a reason to price the risk, not to ignore it.

The two routes out, and the trap in one of them

<b>Have the conditions discharged before completion.</b> This is the answer that actually resolves the problem. Applications to discharge conditions are a normal planning process; the question is whether the conditions can still be satisfied and how long it takes.

<b>Insure against enforcement.</b> Indemnity cover for undischarged conditions typically pays the cost of defending enforcement action, of complying with a notice, and any resulting loss of value.

Those two routes are mutually exclusive, and the order you do things in matters permanently. A policy is commonly void once the planning authority knows about the breach — so anyone who telephones the council to ask an exploratory question before the insurance is in place has closed the insurance route for themselves and for every future owner.