Licence to Alter Drawings for London Flats

Most long leases restrict what a leaseholder can do without the freeholder’s consent. When you want to make structural or significant alterations, the freeholder typically grants permission through a Licence to Alter — a formal document, usually prepared by the freeholder’s solicitor and informed by the freeholder’s surveyor — setting out the approved works and conditions. To assess the application, freeholders and managing agents almost always require drawings and supporting technical information.

We prepare or coordinate that information: existing and proposed layouts, structural opening details for the engineer to design, and information on the matters freeholders scrutinise most — floor build-ups and acoustic performance, fire stopping between dwellings, waterproofing, and the relocation of wet areas. Where works are structural, a structural engineer’s input is required, and the freeholder’s surveyor reviews on the freeholder’s behalf. Clear documentation that anticipates these concerns helps the application progress.

Not every change needs consent, and knowing where the line falls saves time. Purely cosmetic work — redecoration, replacing kitchen units in the same position — usually does not, while structural alterations, moving or removing walls, changing the layout of bathrooms and kitchens, altering windows, and often even new flooring typically do, because the lease reserves them to the freeholder’s consent. The lease itself defines what is caught, and a freeholder generally cannot unreasonably refuse consent to a reasonable alteration. We read the lease against the proposal so the application covers exactly what it needs to.

A Licence to Alter runs to its own sequence: you apply with drawings and a specification; the freeholder’s surveyor reviews them, often raising queries or conditions; and once terms are agreed the licence is drawn up by the freeholder’s solicitor and signed before work starts. The leaseholder usually meets the freeholder’s reasonable surveyor and legal costs as well as their own, and the overall timescale sits largely outside your control. Building that lead time into the programme — and submitting a clear, complete pack to minimise queries — is the practical key to keeping it from delaying the build.

Freeholder consent is only one of the approvals a flat project may need. External alterations can also require planning permission, and most of the works will need building regulations approval, so the sensible approach is to prepare one coherent set of drawings that serves all of them rather than three inconsistent submissions. Crucially, the works should not begin until the licence is signed, even if planning and building control are in hand. We coordinate the three strands so they move together and nothing starts ahead of the consent that authorises it.

A Licence to Alter pack is not a thin layout sketch. Freeholder surveyors typically want existing and proposed floor plans, enough section and detail information to understand structural openings, and a written description of works that matches the drawings. Where wet rooms move, they look for waterproofing intent; where floors change, acoustic build-ups; where walls come out, engineer-led structural strategy; and where fire compartmentation could be affected, clear fire-stopping notes. Managing agents often add building-specific rules — floor finishes, working hours, contractor insurance, protection of common parts — that sit beside the drawings rather than on them. We assemble the pack so the surveyor can review once, not chase missing sheets.

The practical aim is fewer query loops. Incomplete packs stall while the freeholder’s surveyor asks for the next missing drawing, then the next. A complete first submission costs a little more design time up front and usually saves weeks of correspondence later — especially in mansion blocks and managed estates where several flats share structure, drainage stacks and fire strategies.

Leasehold flats often need three tracks: freeholder consent under the lease, planning permission where external or material change engages the council, and building regulations approval for the technical works. Those tracks are not interchangeable. Starting on site with planning and building control alone can still breach the lease. The efficient path is one measured survey, one design model, then drawing packages tailored to each audience — planning sheets for the council, technical sheets for building control, and freeholder-facing packs that emphasise neighbour protection, structure, acoustics and fire. We keep those packages coordinated so a late freeholder condition does not force a redesign of an already-submitted planning set.

Timescales sit partly outside your control: freeholder surveyors and solicitors work to their own diaries. Building programme contingency for the licence is not optional padding — it is how you avoid a contractor standing still with materials ordered and no signed consent. We flag that lead time at route review so the client, freeholder process and build programme stay aligned. Our Licence to Alter process guide sets the sequence out end-to-end for leaseholders.

The freeholder named in your lease is not always the party who reads your drawings. In many London blocks the freehold is owned by a company the leaseholders control, or management sits with a residents' management company or a right to manage company, so the decision rests with a board of directors who are also your neighbours. That changes the pack. A surveyor reads a section drawing and grasps the structural intent; a lay director wants to know in plain terms what is coming out, how the building is held up meanwhile, and what the flat below will hear afterwards. We write the description of works with that second reader in mind, because a board that cannot picture the job tends to defer rather than decide.

Two positions are worth establishing early. Where the freeholder is absent or unresponsive, consent can be genuinely hard to obtain, and that is a legal question for your solicitor, not a drawing problem. Where the proposal takes in space the lease does not demise to you, such as a loft void, a lightwell or part of the common areas, you are not asking to alter your flat but to enlarge it, which usually means a deed of variation rather than a licence alone. Larger managed estates add another layer of estate and freeholder consent procedure. Knowing which document you are heading towards stops us preparing a pack aimed at the wrong one.

Unlicensed alterations tend to surface at the worst moment, when a flat is being sold or remortgaged and the buyer's solicitor asks for the consent that authorises a wall plainly missing from the original plan. A breach of covenant does not quietly expire, so the usual options are to seek a retrospective licence from the freeholder, or to leave the position for the buyer to resolve and accept what that does to the sale. If you are buying, it is far better to establish this before exchange than after, alongside any pre-purchase planning advice on what you intend to do next.

What we can do is document what is actually there: a measured survey of the flat as built, drawings that show the current arrangement honestly, and, where an opening has been formed, the information a structural engineer needs in order to inspect it and comment. What we cannot do is certify workmanship nobody saw or vouch for a floor build-up hidden behind finishes, and the freeholder's surveyor will generally say the same. Expect requests to open up in places, and expect a retrospective application to run longer than a straightforward one. Unauthorised building work is a separate matter again, resolved with building control rather than the freeholder, and it may need its own building regulations drawings.