That Vacant Office Could Be 12 Flats — Here's How to Check in 60 Seconds

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Posted on 18 February 2026

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Permitted development conversions are one of the best opportunities in UK property right now. High street retail is declining. Offices sit empty post-pandemic. And Class MA and Class O rights mean you can convert many of them to residential without full planning permission.

But there's a catch. Not every vacant commercial building qualifies — and finding out the hard way is expensive.

The PD Converter's Dilemma

You've spotted a vacant office block above a row of shops. The floorplate is decent, the ceiling height works, and the location has rental demand. Looks like a perfect Class MA conversion.

So you instruct a planning consultant. Commission a prior approval application. Maybe even get architects to draw up a feasibility study. Total spend so far: £5,000 to £15,000.

Then you discover the property sits inside a Conservation Area with an Article 4 Direction that removes permitted development rights. The whole project is dead before it started.

This happens more often than anyone in the industry likes to admit.

Check Before You Spend

LandAttic was built for exactly this problem. The platform tracks over 15,000 empty properties across the UK — including vacant retail, offices, and industrial units — and overlays the planning data that determines whether a conversion is viable.

Property type filters let you target commercial stock. Filter by Retail, Office, or Industrial to strip out the residential noise and focus on conversion opportunities.

Conservation Areas are visible on the map. Enable the overlay and 10,514 designated conservation areas appear as boundaries. If your target property falls inside one, you'll see it immediately — before spending a penny on consultants.

The planning constraints check does the rest. Click any property and LandAttic pulls five categories of planning data from planning.data.gov.uk: Conservation Areas, Listed Buildings, Article 4 Directions, Tree Preservation Orders, and nearby Planning Applications. The information that determines whether your PD rights survive is right there on screen.

Flood risk affects mortgages on converted units. Lenders are increasingly cautious about flood exposure. LandAttic overlays live Environment Agency flood alerts — rivers, surface water, and active warnings — so you can factor this into your viability assessment from the start.

A Faster Screening Process

The best PD converters screen dozens of properties before committing to one. LandAttic makes that screening process radically faster. Search an area, filter for commercial property types, enable the Conservation Areas overlay, and check planning constraints on the shortlisted properties. What used to take a week of research now takes an afternoon.

EPC data adds another layer. The energy rating, wall construction, and heating system data helps you estimate conversion costs before instructing a surveyor.

The Maths Is Simple

£30/month for LandAttic Essential+. One avoided bad project saves £5,000 to £15,000 in wasted professional fees. One viable conversion found before the competition could be worth hundreds of thousands in profit.

Stop guessing. Start checking. landattic.com

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