What Can They Build Next Door? How to Check Zoning Before You Buy Property Abroad

Published on: August 24, 2026

Last verified: 24 August 2026. Planning rules are set locally and change frequently, and document names differ between municipalities within the same country. Confirm anything decision-critical with a qualified local lawyer and, where relevant, a licensed surveyor or engineer.

Quick answer: A conveyancing check answers whether the seller owns the property and whether it is free of debt. It does not answer what may lawfully be built on the land around it, and in most legal systems a view is not a property right. The document you need comes from the municipality, not the land registry or the notary: the İmar Durumu Belgesi in Turkey, the cédula urbanística in Spain, the certidão against the PDM in Portugal, a land use certificate in Greece, the Certificato di Destinazione Urbanistica in Italy, and the certificat d'urbanisme in France. Request it for the plots between you and whatever you are paying a premium for, not only for the property itself, and ask separately about pending permit applications and plan revisions.

There is a specific complaint that turns up in every overseas property forum, in every language, and it always has the same shape. Somebody bought an apartment or a villa for the view. Two years later a crane arrived on the empty plot in front. Now they look at a wall.

The uncomfortable part is that in almost every case, nothing illegal happened. The title deed was clean. The lawyer did check it. The building that went up in front had a valid permit, because the plot in front had development rights of its own, and nobody thought to look at them.

This is the single largest gap between what buyers think due diligence covers and what it usually covers. A conveyancing check answers "does the seller own this, and is it free of debt". It does not answer "what is legally permitted on the land around it". Those are two different files, held by two different authorities, and only one of them is normally opened.

The principle that catches people out

In most legal systems, a view is not a property right.

Your ownership gives you rights over your own parcel. It does not give you rights over the airspace above someone else's parcel. If the plot in front is classified as buildable and the local plan allows four storeys on it, four storeys can be built on it, and the fact that your purchase price included a premium for the sea is your commercial problem, not the neighbour's legal one.

There are real exceptions, and they are worth knowing because they are what genuine view protection actually looks like:

• A registered easement or servitude. A right of view, or a covenant that a specific parcel must remain unbuilt (a non aedificandi burden), can be created and registered against the neighbouring title. If it exists, it will appear on the neighbouring parcel's registry extract, not on yours.
• The plot in front is not private land at all. A public promenade, a coastal protection strip, a road reserve, a public park, a designated archaeological zone, a forest register parcel, a flood or landslide risk zone. These are the strongest protections that exist.
• Height and bulk limits that physically cannot block you. If you are on the fifth floor and the plan permits two storeys in front, you are structurally safe rather than contractually safe.
• Topography. Being above a ridge line is worth more than any promise in a brochure.

What does not protect a view: the developer's word, the marketing render, the fact that the plot is currently empty, the absence of a permit application today, or a neighbour who says they have no plans.

The four layers you are actually checking

Whatever the country, the zoning question breaks into the same four layers. Use them as your framework and then ask for the local document that answers each one.

1. Classification. Is the land urban, in a development area, rural, agricultural, forest, protected, or coastal? This is binary in effect: it decides whether anything can be built at all.

2. Bulk and density. If something can be built, how much? This is where the numbers live: plot ratio or floor area ratio, site coverage, maximum height in metres and in storeys, setbacks from boundaries and from the road, minimum plot size.

3. Permitted use. Residential, tourist accommodation, commercial, industrial, mixed. A hotel next door is a different neighbour from a house, and use classes are often where the unpleasant surprises sit.

4. The pipeline. This is the layer almost nobody checks, and it is the one that predicts the crane. Are there pending permit applications on neighbouring parcels? Is the local plan under revision or in public consultation? Is there a road widening line, a new tourism zone designation, an infrastructure corridor, or an expropriation notice?

Layers one to three describe the world as it is. Layer four describes the world as it is about to be.

The document to ask for, country by country

The names differ. The information is the same. Note the pattern: in every case the authority is the municipality, not the land registry and not the notary. A land registry search and a municipal planning search are separate exercises, and paying for one does not get you the other. Our guide to land registries and cadastres for foreign buyers covers the other half of the picture.

Turkey

Ask for the İmar Durumu Belgesi for the subject parcel and, separately, for the parcels between you and the view. It will state the ada and parsel numbers, the classification, and the two numbers that decide the mass of any future building: TAKS (the proportion of the plot that can be covered) and KAKS, also called emsal (the floor area ratio). A KAKS of 2.00 on the plot in front means twice its area can be built above ground, and the height limit tells you how it will be stacked.

Two further points specific to Turkey. First, check whether the existing building has both a Yapı Ruhsatı (building permit) and a Yapı Kullanma İzin Belgesi, the occupancy permit commonly called iskân. A property without an occupancy permit is a different asset from one with it, with knock-on effects on utilities, resale and finance. Second, a Yapı Kayıt Belgesi, the building registration document issued under the 2018 amnesty programme, records an unpermitted structure. It is not a retrospective planning permission and it does not convert an irregular building into a compliant one.

On the coast, ask separately about the kıyı kenar çizgisi, the shoreline boundary line, which governs what may exist within the coastal strip. Our guide to coastal ownership and setback laws covers how that works across the Mediterranean.

Spain

The PGOU is the master document and it is public. Most town halls now publish a planning viewer online, and larger ones publish the normativa as well. What you want in writing is the cédula urbanística for the plots around you, which states the classification (suelo urbano, suelo urbanizable, suelo no urbanizable), the permitted uses, the edificabilidad, the ocupación, the maximum altura and the retranqueos.

Run three additional Spanish checks. Pull a nota simple from the Registro de la Propiedad for the neighbouring parcels, because registered easements and charges appear there. Compare the registry description against the Catastro, because a mismatch in area or boundaries is common and matters. And if you are looking at rural Andalusia, ask specifically whether the property is an asimilado a fuera de ordenación case, because irregular rural construction has its own regularisation route (AFO or DAFO) that stops short of full planning compliance. On the coast, the Ley de Costas protection easement is a separate overlay from the PGOU and needs its own answer.

Portugal

The PDM is the controlling instrument for most of the country, and the two overlays that stop construction are the REN (national ecological reserve) and the RAN (national agricultural reserve). A plot can be private, well-priced, with a road and services, and still be undevelopable because it sits inside one of them.

Ask for the planta de localização with the PDM classification marked, the caderneta predial urbana from the tax authority, and the certidão de teor from the land registry. For the existing building, ask for the licença de utilização and check that the licensed use matches how the property is being sold to you. If you are told the licensing environment has become quicker, that is true: the Simplex Urbanístico reform of 2024 shortened parts of the process. Faster licensing on your plot also means faster licensing on the plot in front.

Greece

Greece has a distinction that has no clean equivalent elsewhere and that dominates the answer: in-plan (εντός σχεδίου) versus out-of-plan (εκτός σχεδίου). Inside an approved plan, you read the plan. Outside it, a separate national regime governs whether a plot is άρτιο και οικοδομήσιμο, meaning of sufficient size and frontage to be built on at all, and those rules were tightened by Law 4759/2020, with the derogations that historically let small plots be built on being phased out. A rural Greek plot that "had building rights" a decade ago may not have them on the same terms now, and equally, a neighbouring plot you assumed was unbuildable may qualify.

Three Greek documents matter beyond the plan itself. A land use certificate from the planning office. A forest map (δασικός χάρτης) check, because a parcel entered on the forest register is a serious problem. And the engineer's certificate (βεβαίωση μηχανικού) that Greek law requires for a transfer, confirming there is no unauthorised construction on the property. Add an archaeological service enquiry in any area with known sites, since it can restrict excavation depth and design.

How to check the pipeline, which is the part that predicts the crane

Everything above is static. This is the part that answers your actual question.

1. Ask the municipality for pending applications on the adjoining and opposite parcels. In most European jurisdictions permit applications are a matter of public record, and many municipalities publish a register. This is a specific, answerable request. Give the parcel identifiers, not the street address.
2. Ask whether the local plan is under revision. Plan amendments run through statutory public consultation. If a revision is in progress, the draft is published, and the draft is what will govern in two years.
3. Look for road and infrastructure lines. Widening reservations, new access roads and utility corridors sit on the plan as lines, and they routinely cut through gardens.
4. Check for tourism or hotel zone designations. A residential neighbour and a 200-bed hotel are both "permitted development" in some zones.
5. Walk the site and read the ground. Survey stakes, a site notice, a fenced compound, a soil investigation rig, a newly cleared plot, a site board with an architect's name. Photograph anything posted, and have it translated.
6. Check the seller's own timing. A seller listing a view apartment at a slight discount, shortly after a permit was granted opposite, is a pattern worth noticing.

A ten-point checklist to hand your lawyer

Give this to local counsel in writing and ask for written answers. Verbal reassurance is worth nothing when the crane arrives.

1. Classification, permitted uses and full bulk parameters for the subject property.
2. The same, for every parcel between the property and the feature you are paying a premium for.
3. Confirmation of whether the local plan is in force, expired, or under revision, and the status of any draft.
4. A register search on neighbouring parcels for easements, covenants and non aedificandi burdens.
5. Any pending or recently granted building permits within a defined radius.
6. Any road, infrastructure, expropriation or public works reservation affecting the property or its access.
7. Environmental, coastal, forest, flood and archaeological overlays, each answered separately.
8. Building permit and occupancy permit for the existing structure, plus confirmation the built form matches the permitted form.
9. Whether the registry description, the cadastral record and the physical boundaries agree.
10. For an apartment: the building's shared-ownership rules and whether the roof, facade or airspace can be built on or developed by the owners' association or the original developer.

Two practical notes on process. First, budget for it. A planning search on three or four parcels plus a register search is a real cost, usually a few hundred euros, and it is trivial against the price of the premium you are paying for the view. Second, put it in the contract. If the answer matters that much, make the reservation deposit refundable pending a satisfactory planning report, and have the deposit held by the notary or in an escrow account rather than by the agent. Our guides on hiring a real estate lawyer abroad and the civil law notary system cover how those mechanics differ between jurisdictions.

Frequently asked questions

Can I insure against losing a view?
Not in any mainstream market. Title insurance, where it is available, covers defects in title, not future lawful development by third parties. Some jurisdictions offer legal indemnity policies for specific identified planning risks, but they are narrow and priced accordingly.

Does buying the plot in front solve it?
It is the only complete solution, and it is why front-row buyers in coastal markets sometimes buy the strip in front. Check the classification and holding costs before assuming it is worth it, and check whether the plot can be subdivided later by a future owner if you resell it separately.

The agent says the plot in front "cannot be built on". Is that enough?
Ask why, in writing, and ask for the document that proves it. "Cannot be built on" has at least six possible reasons, ranging from permanent (public land, coastal strip, forest register) to entirely temporary (the current owner has no plans, or the plot is currently too small to meet a minimum that a future assembly of two plots would satisfy). The reason determines the durability.

What about a new-build where the whole neighbourhood is unfinished?
Ask for the master plan for the entire development, not just your phase, and ask for the permitted heights of the later phases. Buyers in phase one of a development are the most exposed group of all, because the plots around them are guaranteed to be built on, by a party who already has consent.

Is the answer different for an apartment than for a villa?
The external question is identical. Apartments add an internal one: what the owners' association or the original developer can do to the building itself, including roof extensions, facade changes, converting common areas, or a right retained by the developer over unsold airspace. Read the building's constitutive rules.

Keep reading on JanusHermes

The planning file is the cheapest piece of due diligence in a cross-border purchase and the one most often skipped, because it sits with an authority nobody in the transaction is being paid to visit. Ask for it in writing, on the parcels around you, before the deposit stops being refundable. JanusHermes lists property from local agencies in 11 languages, with the local agency's own contact details on every listing.

Related reading: is my overseas property legal, checking a property for hidden debts and liens, military zones and border-area restrictions, climate risk checks before buying and rural land traps: access, water and boundaries.

This article is general information about how planning and zoning enquiries work in different jurisdictions, current as at August 2026. It is not legal, tax or investment advice, and planning rules are set locally and change frequently. Document names, procedures and thresholds vary between municipalities within the same country. Always obtain written advice from a qualified lawyer and, where relevant, a licensed local surveyor or engineer in the jurisdiction concerned before committing funds.