Selling land for development isn’t just about finding a buyer; it’s about making the buyer pay for potential, not just the status quo. At Intelligent Land, we help landowners package, prove and price that potential before going to market.
Our Land Value Accelerator™ (LVA Method™) combines proprietary AI with 30 years of planning expertise to reveal uplift others miss – often £1m+ within 24 hours of initial modelling.
Book your call to find out more about the LVA Method™, and find out how we can unlock hidden millions in your development.
How we help you sell land for development, for more than it’s worth
But first… why most land sells for less than it should
Developers price land off a simple idea: GDV – costs – profit = land value.
If they don’t know the true density and worth they can achieve, how to meet Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) cheaply, or whether access and drainage stack up, they assume the worst. That assumption shows up as lower bids, heavier conditions, or painful price chips during diligence before selling land for development.
Flip the script.
You don’t need to deliver full planning to command a better price. But you do need to reduce uncertainty and evidence a credible route to higher value. That’s what the LVA Method™ is designed to do – and fast.
The promise: sell land for development smarter, not slower
Our approach to selling land for development, and increasing the value before the sale, is a time-boxed pre-sale sprint. In a few weeks, we produce a Buyer-Ready Value Dossier that proves the art of the possible, removes nasty surprises, and gives your agent a stronger story to take to market. We will help determine what can value your land far higher than you previously thought.
What changes for you:
- Higher guide and firmer bids because buyers can price facts, not contingencies.
- Shorter negotiation because headline risks – BNG, access, services, s106 optics – are addressed up front.
- Fewer chips at heads of terms and during diligence because the dossier keeps everyone honest.
The LVA Method™ (how we raise value before sale)
1) Review Planning Permissions
We capture your current planning position land value and the constraints that shape development potential: policy, red-line boundaries, ecology baseline, heritage, flood, highways, utilities. Getting the baseline right avoids later design churn and allows us to target the real value levers.
Typical outputs: a clear baseline map and constraints summary; early view on density bands; a list of risks that are solvable in-sprint versus those to disclose and price.
2) Undertake Research
We run rapid but rigorous checks across title and easements (including ransom risks), visibility splays and access geometry, capacity with utilities providers, drainage concepts, BNG pathways (on-site, off-site, credits), likely CIL/s106 patterns, and local housing mix norms.
This converts “unknowns” into priced, evidenced assumptions.
Typical outputs: heads of terms with networks/utilities, an outline SuDS concept, notes from highways and ecology pre-app, an indicative s106/CIL summary, and a BNG costed route.
3) Scenario Testing
Here the AI does the heavy lifting. LVA models thousands of permutations – layout, access options, SuDS specifications, BNG mixes, management standards – then ranks them by £ per unit of uplift, NIA impact, weeks to consent, and committee optics. We zero in on the cheapest compliant route that supports the strongest worth of building land.
Typical outputs: 2–3 top scenarios with drawings, density ranges, abnormal cost register, BNG plan (on-/off-site/credit mix), and a recommended legal route (s106 or covenant) for 30-year obligations.
BNG without the margin burn (for landowners)
BNG spooks buyers when it’s unclear. It doesn’t have to. We treat BNG as a design and procurement variable, not a tax on plots.
- On-site: win units via specification (SuDS planting palettes, habitat condition targets, green roofs/walls) before you touch density.
- Off-site: secure units within the right geography to avoid premium statutory credits.
- Credits: keep as contingency for small residual gaps.
In the dossier, we include a costed BNG pathway with governance (who holds the 30-year obligation, how it’s funded and monitored). Buyers don’t overprice BNG risk when they can see a credible, compliant and affordable route.
Do you need full planning before you sell land for development?
If you want to sell land for development, do you need planning before you sell? The answer is, not always. The right answer depends on your timetable, risk appetite and market. Present the evidence buyers need and you can capture most of the value uplift without the time and cost of full permission.
- Packaged, unconsented sale: the LVA Dossier plus supportive pre-app notes and technical heads of terms. This often delivers 80–90% of the value lift with a fraction of the work.
- Outline permission: sensible when parameters (heights, access points, land use) are contentious; LVA steers the parameter plans and s106 strategy to protect density.
- Hybrid/RM: rarely necessary to maximise sale price unless local politics demand granularity.
Find out more about how we can help increase the value of your land before you have planning permission.
Legal and commercial packaging that attracts better bids
A developer’s first instinct when selling land is to protect their downside. Your job is to shrink that downside before marketing.
Title and access. Clean up rights of way, ransom strips and visibility splays or show a priced route to resolve them. An annotated title plan with proposed remedies goes a long way.
Services and drainage. Frictionless connections sell. Having heads of terms from water, power and gas, plus a viable SuDS concept and management approach, keeps abnormal allowances grounded.
s106/CIL optics. Outline likely obligations with precedent examples so bidders don’t assume the worst. If education or highways contributions are likely, show your evidence and narrative.
Delivery risk. Be explicit about who does what, when—especially for BNG governance, access works and drainage approvals. A short delivery roadmap makes your land feel simpler to transact.
Option vs promotion vs outright sale (and where value leaks)
These routes are tools, not ideologies.
Option agreements can be right when a promoter or developer needs time to take the site through planning. Use LVA to set triggers and floors that reflect the uplift we’ve modelled so you’re not locked into yesterday’s assumptions.
Promotion agreements align interests where a promoter takes a site to consent and brings it to market. LVA helps maximise the scope of consent and package the evidence that commands stronger bids at disposal.
Outright sales work when the market is hot or the site is straightforward. Even then, a pre-sale LVA sprint raises the as-is price by proving potential and removing unknowns.
- Rule of thumb: value leaks where uncertainty lives. Move uncertainty into priced, evidenced assumptions and you get it back in the sale price.
What goes in a Buyer-Ready Value Dossier
The dossier is the product we take to market. It’s designed to be skimmed by senior decision-makers and trusted by technical teams.
- Executive summary with density bands, indicative GDV logic, abnormal cost ranges and the recommended delivery route.
- Planning and baseline: policy position, constraints plan, ecology baseline (including irreplaceables), flood/heritage notes.
- Scenario Pack: 2–3 short-listed layouts with pros/cons and BNG pathways, each scored by £/unit and planning risk.
- Technical heads: access geometry and visibility splays, SuDS approach and O&M, utilities capacity notes with any fees/timescales.
- s106/CIL optic: precedent obligations and a draft negotiating stance that protects density and viability.
- Governance: who holds 30-year BNG responsibilities, monitoring cadence, and the proposed legal instrument (s106 or covenant).
- Disposal plan: recommended route to market, buyer profile, and a bid template that keeps offers comparable.
We keep it concise, visual and defensible. The combination of clarity + credibility is what shifts buyers from cautious to competitive.
Case snapshot (anonymised)
A 14.8-hectare edge-of-settlement parcel came to us with an agent guide around £6.5m. Early whispers from bidders suggested heavy BNG and access risk. Within four weeks, LVA scenario testing added +26–31 feasible plots by refining access geometry and re-specifying SuDS and street trees for habitat gain.
An off-site BNG unit purchase was identified to avoid statutory credits, and a title review neutralised a suspected ransom by agreeing a costed deed of grant.
We packaged a supportive highways pre-app note and included a draft s106 strategy. The site went to best-and-final at £8.2m, with clean conditions and a 12-week exchange timetable.
Nothing “magical” – just evidence buyers would otherwise have paid to discover (and used to chip the price).
How we help you sell land for development at a higher price: Pricing power via evidence
The endgame is simple: make it easy for buyers to bid high. Evidence turns “what if?” into “here’s how”—and serious developers pay for that. When they don’t have to guess, they don’t load bids with pessimism or keep “subject to…” clauses that eat your price later. Your dossier earns you pricing power long before you negotiate.
How Intelligent Land helps (fast)
We’ll anchor this section in your words, because it’s exactly the point:
The LVA method can help mitigate viability and cost impact. BNG can de-rail a project so LVA could help. If there are things blocking your scheme, or you want to get more sale value, then LVA could help to unblock it as it can reveal hidden land value.
That’s the brief our team runs to. We start by truthing your baseline and planning position. We then use the LVA Method™ to test design and procurement options that get you to the cheapest compliant route, protecting density and de-risking the planning story. Finally, we package the evidence so agents can create competition and buyers can commit.
Deliverables you can expect:
- A crisp Buyer-Ready Value Dossier with 2–3 value-maximising scenarios.
- A costed BNG pathway (on-site/off-site/credits) with 30-year governance and monitoring responsibilities defined.
- Heads of terms or indicative notes from utilities and highways to tame abnormals.
- A recommended disposal plan and bid template to hold the line on price.
FAQs
- Do I have to go to full planning before sale? No. In many cases, a packaged, unconsented sale achieves most of the uplift if you can show a credible route and tame the big risks.
- What if I’ve already appointed an agent? Great—give them stronger ammunition. We often work alongside agents to sharpen the guide, harden the story and run a more disciplined bid process.
- What if my site is small? The method scales. On smaller sites, the Small Sites Metric for BNG and a lighter technical pack still move the price needle because you remove buyer uncertainty.
- How do fees work? Fixed-fee or success-linked. Most clients prefer a structured fee tied to verified uplift.
Next step
Book a 30-minute Land Value Scan. We’ll review your site and show you three pre-sale uplift levers with an indicative £ value – so you can decide whether to hold, promote or sell land for development now.
