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There are estimated to be about 10,000 conservation areas in the UK and these are sites designated by councils as having unique natural, historic or architectural importance, with plans put in place to preserve the areas. This guide walks you through the process of selling a home in a conservation area and how to improve your chances of getting a fair and fast offer.
- What does it mean to own a home in a conservation area?
- Finding out whether your property is situated in a conservation area
- Why some buyers prefer properties that are in conservation areas
- Potential barriers to selling a house or flat in a conservation area
- Four options to sell your home within a conservation area
- Top questions and answers about selling property in a conservation area
What does it mean to own a home in a conservation area?
First established in 1967, there are estimated to be roughly 10,000 conservation areas throughout the UK that designate places of important architectural, natural or historic interest.
Conservation areas have a legal definition as having “the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance,” which Wikipedia notes comes from a law known as the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990.
Such areas might include town centres, canals, villages, estates, parks and many other locations, and it’s not always clear to a freehold or leasehold property owner if they live in one.
You can find conservation areas throughout the country, including several historic parts of London, national parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty – now known since November 2023 as National Landscapes – and more. As outlined in more detail later in this guide, local authorities publish plans for preserving or enhancing such areas, and any residential properties that are located within one of these areas must comply with the provisions of those plans.
If you’re attempting to sell such a home privately and have confirmed that the property is located in a conservation area, you might find that there are benefits to attracting buyers as well as challenges.
For example, the appearance of the area might be enticing to many potential owners but the council’s preservation plan may be too onerous for them.
Legally, you are able to sell your house in a conservation area without obtaining any specific permissions. However, during the conveyancing process there may be information that becomes apparent regarding planning constraints. It may be worthwhile being completely transparent with the buyer that the property you are selling is in a conservation area.
Keep reading to learn more about the pros and cons that people might associated with a property in a conservation area, and also to learn about the four typical ways that can try to find a buyer, including some options that can make getting a speedy and fair offer much easier.
Finding out whether your property is situated in a conservation area
Why some buyers prefer properties that are in conservation areas
Owning a property in a conservation area can sometimes make it easier to attract buyers when you are looking to sell your home. There are a few reasons that explain why a person might be more interested in making an offer on this type of property, and it’s worth learning about them when you’re ready to sell.
Because of their natural, historic or architectural importance, conservation areas are often very scenic and unique and this can lead many people to view homes in such locations as being more valuable than those that are not situated within these areas. That means a property which is within a conservation area could potentially keep its overall value even when the housing market is facing a downturn, as the website Reallymoving says.
The overall appearance of a conservation and the properties within it will likely be interesting, making the home aesthetically appealing to potential buyers beyond the added value aspect. And the management plan that the local authority has in place for the area will ensure that homeowners keep their properties in good condition and the look of the area doesn’t change.
Certain buyers could also view owning a home within a conservation area as a type of status symbol, and this may be appealing enough for them to make an offer on the property.
Generally, some estimates suggest that a property being designated as being part of a conservation area could add almost 10 percent to its value, compared to a house or flat that is not situated in such a location. And this added long-term value will often by the primary reason why someone could be interested in making an offer to buy your property.
Potential barriers to selling a house or flat in a conservation area
Although there are explanations for why a buyer may have more interest in making an offer on a conservation area property rather than a home located elsewhere, you might also encounter some barriers to selling because of negative aspects linked to this type of property.
Due to the fact that local authorities believe conservations areas to have special historic or architectural interest, the councils then devise plans for maintaining that characteristic, as Historic England explains. And some of these plans can place significant restrictions on what homeowners can do with properties in these areas, including bans or limits on construction or other work.
Known as “Article 4 Directions”, such restrictions can be as specific as preventing you from painting your front door or window frames in a different colour, removing any shrubs or trees and more, and you may find that some buyers view these limits as being too burdensome.
These directions in particular could make a buyer lose interest if they only wanted to make an offer to purchase your house or flat because they have plans for a large-scale renovation, expansion or other construction work that they want to pursue at the property.
Owners of properties within conservation areas are also required to maintain their homes and make sure they do not fall into disrepair. Failing to comply with this mandate could result in the council pursuing enforcement against you in order to force you to pay for such work.
You could find that some people who may otherwise be considering making an offer on your property decide against it because of this potential threat from the local authority.
Four options to sell your home within a conservation area
After reviewing the pros and cons of trying to sell a property that is in a conservation area, you will next need to pick a method for how you would like to find a buyer, whether that’s selling to a quick home buyer, selling with an auctioneer, selling with an estate agent or selling on your own.
All four options are explained below and you will see that they all have unique advantages and disadvantages, ranging from the benefit of not having to pay any commission when you sell to a legitimate quick home buyer such as LDN Properties through to the drawback of sometimes having to wait more than a year to sell when doing so with the help of an estate agent.
To assist you in selecting a selling option, consider your main goals with selling, including whether you are willing to pay any commission, how long you are prepared to wait before selling and your ideal selling price. Then compare this information against the specific details of the four choices below and this should make the closest match to your situation stand out.
Selling to a quick home buyer
One way to sell a property in a conservation area is by contacting a quick home buyer, like LDN Properties. They have the funds available to buy all types of properties immediately, with no waiting for weeks or months before getting approval for a mortgage to make the purchase.
This reduces the standard selling timeline with a quick buyer down to a few short weeks, and this includes the time taken to exchange contracts and pay the owner the full sale proceeds. It means selling this way is often the speediest way to sell practically any property.
Quick buyers are also experts at making fast and competitive offers to purchase almost any home no matter if it’s located within a conservation area and regardless of any structural damage that the property might have, or its age, shape, size, type of other factors.
Beyond buying homes in conservation areas, LDN Properties has made many other wide-ranging purchases and offers across the UK since it was founded in 2003, including derelict houses, properties with a defective lease, homes with lapsed planning permission, flats that have a share of the freehold, houses with a heat pump, properties without a survey, homes near an electrical substation, flats that do not have a management company, underpinned houses, properties with drainage problems, homes with overdue bills, half-finished flats, Woolaway houses and many other scenario.
Another plus about selling to a quick buyer is that the honest companies will never charge you any commission, so you are guaranteed to receive the full sale proceeds. That compares well to selling via an estate agent or auctioneer because with those two choices you will need to pay them commission if they sell your home and this will be taken out of the final sale proceeds.
Selling to a quick buyer also means you can also avoid having dozens or more viewings where people interested in your property get to tour it in person. You will only need to have a single viewing where a representative from the quick buying company comes to inspect the inside and outside of your house or flat, as they will use the details from this visit to make a final offer.
Selling with an auctioneer
There isn’t much work for you to do when you sell a home in a conservation area through an auctioneer because they will take care of most of the effort needed to find a buyer.
This begins when then create a listing that describes your house or flat and includes photographs of the interior and exterior, which they will then advertise to generate interest from buyers ahead of auction. They will host the auction itself and if your property manages to sell the auctioneer will oversee the paperwork and other steps needed to complete the sale.
If your home does sell at the auction then the winning bidder will usually have about a month to sign all of the required legal papers and finish their other mandatory actions, adding more time to an already slow selling process, as you will already experience a long wait of many weeks or more between the day that you choose to sell your home this way and when the auction occurs.
There are some auctioneers that could be open to setting a shorter deadline than a month for the buyer to finish their tasks, so it’s worth asking about this because it could accelerate a sale. But note that other auctioneers may allow even more than a month for doing these steps, and that would add even more time to your overall schedule for selling your property.
Remember also that you will have to pay commission to the auctioneer in the event that they are able to sell your property. This is usually charged at about 2.5 percent of your home’s eventual sale price and the fee is taken immediately out of the auction proceeds, so you may want to think about other selling methods if reducing your expenses is a top priority.
It is worth taking time to ask individual auctioneers whether they might be willing to either reduce how much commission they charge you on the successful sale of your property, or have the winning bidder pay a share of your costs, but neither of these outcomes is guaranteed.
Selling with an estate agent
This is not the quickest option for selling a flat or house in a conservation area because it can take many months or even more than a full year before you will find a serious buyer.
Even if you get an offer on your property, the person making it could then rescind the offer, which could prompt the sale to fall apart. It would extend your selling timeline much further because you would then need to begin again with your search for a buyer – and the buyer that withdrew their offer can’t be subject to any penalties if contracts were not yet exchanged.
You will also need to pay commission if you manage to sell your home through an estate agent and this is typically charged within a range from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of the property’s sale price. The fee is subtracted immediately from the sale proceeds, adding to your costs, so if you want to reduce expenses when selling them you may need to consider other options.
The commission pays for the work that the estate agent does in selling your property, including developing and advertising the listing, scheduling viewings to give potential buyers a tour of the home, hearing offers and taking a serious offer through to exchanging contracts. Some owners say they prefer this approach because it means minimal work for them with selling.
Beware that some estate agents may also quote a very high price for selling your home despite knowing it will only sell at a lower value – and they do this to convince you to use their services, so that you’ll have to pay them commission if they are able to sell your property.
To overcome this trick, ask many estate agents for a free no-obligation estimate of your home’s sale value, and look on property sales websites to see the current and past prices of houses or flats like yours, then calculate the average of all these values and that should give you a better estimate of the price range that you home might be able to reasonably attract.
Selling on your own
If you try to sell a property in a conservation area without any assistance, this mean that the responsibility for handling all of the required tasks will fall on you. This can quickly become a very stressful situation and you might find that it takes up almost all of your time.
You will need to put together a listing for your property, advertise it, organise viewings, give people tours of the home, hear offers and hopefully take one through to exchanging contracts. It’s a huge amount of work and could take you more than a year before you are able to sell.
That’s why this approach to selling is only recommended if you have sold a conservation area property before or have a skilled friend or family member willing to assist the sale for free.
Selling this way shares the same drawback of using an estate agent in that someone can make an offer to buy your house or flat but later change their mind and cancel it, which they are allowed to do without facing any penalties if you have not yet exchanged contracts. This would cause the sale to collapse and force you to start over with trying to find a buyer, which could potentially add many more months or longer to your schedule for selling.
One of the only obvious advantages of this selling option is that you will not need to pay any commission to an auctioneer or estate agent when you finally find a buyer, which helps with reducing your expenses. But you could find that this saving is cancelled out by the money you will need to spend on promoting your property’s listing and other necessary tasks.
Therefore, you may want to think about instead selling your home to a zero-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties, because not only will you experience the same benefit of not having to pay any commission but you will also get a much speedier sale, as quick buyers can usually complete all of the steps for buying a house or flat within a handful of weeks. This makes them a streamlined, no-stress and hassle-free way to sell compared to doing so on your own.
Top questions and answers about selling property in a conservation area
For more than 20 years LDN Properties has been buying conservation area properties, and here you can read our replies to frequently asked questions that we get about these homes.
Your top questions when selling property in a conservation area
There are believed to be about 10,000 conservation areas in the UK where local authorities attempt to preserve the appearance of a location because of its natural beauty, architectural interest, or historic importance. Councils write management plans that aim to preserve the look of such areas and these can place limits on what homeowners can do with their properties.
There is no single national database that lists each and every conservation area, where you could type in an address and see if the home is within such a location. Instead, the simplest solution will be to contact your local authority and ask whether your property is in a conservation area. A potential buyer’s conveyancer will also likely be able to find this information out.
Because conservation areas aim to protect locations with great scenic, architectural or historic value, this can make homes situated in these areas very visually appealing. This can make many buyers consider a property in a conservation area to be more valuable, and some people might also think that owning a house or flat in such an area to be a good status symbol.
One of the biggest reasons why a potential buyer might lose interest in your property once they discover that it is within a conservation area is that they could view the council’s management plan for the area as being too restrictive. Another explanation could be that these homes tend to be higher value than other properties so they might exceed some buyers’ available budgets.
Sell your property without any help from a commission-charging third party like an estate agent or auctioneer, or sell the home to a zero-fee quick buyer such as LDN Properties. Remember that if you do decide to use an auctioneer or an estate agent that they will charge you commission and this will be deducted from the sale proceeds, adding to your costs.
Your fastest choice will typically be contacting a quick home buyer like LDN Properties because the overall schedule should only be a few short weeks, and this covers the time taken to exchange contracts and pay you the proceeds. The alternative methods of selling on your own, selling at an auction or selling via an estate agent could all take at least several months.
