Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

De Minimis definition

What does De Minimis mean? In practice, de minimis describes matters so trivial in scale or effect that a court or regulator will decline relief, impose no liability, or take no enforcement action. It is a common-law maxim applied through case law across the UK and Ireland; in some areas legislation or guidance sets explicit de minimis thresholds. Typical uses include rejecting negligible nuisance or trespass, treating insubstantial copying as not a “substantial part” in copyright, refusing an injunction for a technical or trivial contractual breach, awarding only nominal damages where loss is negligible, and regulatory forbearance in competition or planning where impact is minimal. The...

Planning Law in England and Wales: A Practitioner’s Overview of Development, Policy, Heritage, EIA, Conditions, s106, CIL, Enforcement, CPOs, Highways, Appeals and Legal Challenges

Published by a LexisNexis Property expert

Practice notes

This Practice Note is a reworked version of the PowerPoint Introduction to Planning Law, offering a set of slides and speaker notes to acquaint trainees, junior lawyers and lawyers from other practice areas with the fundamentals of Planning law. For the PowerPoint version, see: —powerpoint.

When planning permission is needed

‘Development’

Section 57 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 (TCPA 1990) provides that planning permission is needed for the development of land. Under TCPA 1990, s 55, development means:

the carrying out of building, engineering, mining or other operations in, on, over or under land (operational development), or
the making of any material change in the use of any buildings or other land

‘Operational development’

Operational development includes building, engineering, mining and other operations.

Building operations

Building operations are expressly defined to include demolition, rebuilding, structural alterations or additions to a building, and any work normally undertaken by a builder. Some operations may fall outside development control entirely by being considered de minimis. The courts have held that the issue of whether building operations have been carried out should first be addressed by determining whether what has been...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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