Can planning due diligence help avoid a bad property purchase?

Planning due diligence checks - image of vacant block with wire fence around it.

Welcome to our blog series aimed at Buyer’s Agents and Advocates in Victoria. Throughout this series, we explore the critical role of town planning in identifying property potential, mitigating risk, and enhancing the strategic advice you provide to your clients. Navigating Victoria’s planning system can be complex, but understanding key planning considerations can be a significant asset in your service offering.

Further reading in this series:

As a trusted Buyer’s Agent, your primary goal is to guide clients towards smart property acquisitions and protect them from costly mistakes. Your due diligence process is thorough, covering market analysis, building condition, and legal checks.

But, can a deeper dive into the planning rules before buying truly safeguard your client from future headaches or missed opportunities?

Yes, absolutely. Integrating targeted town planning due diligence (in conjunction with design feasibility study led by an Architect) early in the purchasing process is a powerful tool for both risk mitigation and opportunity identification, providing a new level of clarity.

Why is proactive planning due diligence so important before a property purchase?

Investing time in a planning assessment before purchase commitment helps avoid properties with hidden issues that could derail a client’s plans:

  • Uncovering Restrictive Overlays: A property might be in a desired location and zone, but affected by an overlay (like Heritage, Environmental Significance, or Bushfire Management) that severely restricts renovation, development, or even vegetation removal in ways not immediately obvious. Planning due diligence identifies these early.
  • Revealing Non-Compliant Works: Sometimes, previous owners have undertaken building work or initiated a land use without the necessary planning permit. A planning check can help flag potential retrospective permit issues and compliance problems that would become the buyer’s responsibility.
  • Identifying Site-Specific Constraints: Features like easements, significant trees (potentially protected by planning overlays), or challenging interfaces with neighbouring properties can impose limitations addressed by planning rules. Understanding these upfront avoids nasty surprises.
  • Providing Realistic Potential: While a property might appear to have development potential (e.g., a large block), a planning review confirms if that potential is genuinely supported by the zoning, minimum lot sizes, and other planning controls, preventing overestimation of a property’s future use.

Planning due diligence or feasibility is distinct from:

  • Design Feasibility: How a building designer or architect can physically fit a project onto the site while meeting building codes and planning requirements.
  • Cost Feasibility: Whether the project is financially viable based on construction costs, expected sale prices, etc.

Get strategic with a pre-application planning meeting with your Council

For properties with complex planning controls or significant, but uncertain, potential, a facilitated pre-application meeting with the local Council as part of your due diligence is invaluable (both for planning and for design feasibility). Organised and led by a planning professional on your client’s behalf, this meeting allows for direct, preliminary feedback from Council planners on how they view key planning considerations, potential issues, and the likely requirements for any future applications. This step offers a higher degree of certainty early on, allowing your client to make a purchasing decision with greater confidence. It is recommended that you have a design feasibility study completed by an Architect to take to Council during this phase.

By integrating this level of planning investigation, you provide a more comprehensive due diligence service. You empower your clients with a realistic understanding of a property’s planning-related risks and verifiable opportunities before they sign the contract, strengthening their decision-making and potentially saving them from significant future problems.

Need support with pre-purchase planning due diligence?

AS Planning specialises in providing efficient, focused planning assessments tailored for Buyer’s Agents and Advocates during the critical due diligence period. We provide clear, realistic advice on a property’s planning potential and constraints based on the applicable Planning Scheme and can organise and facilitate pre-application Council meetings on your behalf to address key planning considerations early.
AS Planning work across all Council areas in Victoria, request a quote today.