Section 10.7 certificate, Inner West Council: cost, timing and what it doesn't cover

Cost and timing at Inner West Council

Fees change on 1 July. These are the 2026-27 figures. Check the council's current fees and charges before you pay.

How to apply at Inner West Council

Inner West is the only one of the three councils compared on this site that publishes a turnaround, and the only one that documents a registration step before you can lodge. Plan for both.

Register on the self-service portal

Applications go through council's TechnologyOne online services portal. You register once; council says verifying a registration can take up to two business days. That verification sits in front of the five business day processing time, so a first-time applicant should count on roughly a week from deciding to order to holding the certificate, and should register before an urgent need arises.

Lodge the planning certificate request

Once logged in, the planning certificate request is where you lodge, choosing a 10.7(2) certificate or a 10.7(2) and (5) certificate. Council does not use the NSW Planning Portal's optional online certificate service.

If you need it in 24 hours

Select the urgent option and lodge by 3:30pm. Council states that urgent applications lodged on a Friday are available the next business day, so a Friday afternoon order arrives on Monday. The urgent surcharge of $260.20 is more than four times the $62.00 certificate fee.

What Inner West says a 10.7(5) adds

Council describes the 10.7(5) content as including "other factors such as advice from other authorities and certain information that Council holds on a property". For a house in a conservation area, that advice can be the most useful page in the document.

What the certificate tells you

A section 10.7(2) certificate is the council's statement of the planning rules that apply to a parcel of land on the day it is issued. The contents are prescribed by Schedule 2 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Regulation 2021, so every NSW council answers the same list:

• Which instruments apply. The local environmental plan, state planning policies, development control plans and contributions plans that cover the land.
• Zone and uses. The zone, what is permitted with and without consent, what is prohibited, and any minimum lot size rule for building a dwelling.
• Heritage. Whether the land is a heritage item or sits in a conservation area.
• Hazard notations. Whether the land is bush fire prone, whether flood related development controls apply, and any mine subsidence, loose-fill asbestos or contaminated land notice.
• Acquisition and roads. Whether the land is reserved for acquisition or affected by road widening, and whether complying or exempt development is available.

A 10.7(5) certificate adds the council's advice on other matters affecting the land that it is aware of. It is discretionary: each council decides what goes in, so the same section buys different advice in different council areas. In NSW the vendor must attach a 10.7(2) certificate to the contract for sale, so for most purchases you read one before you ever order one.

What it doesn't cover in the Inner West

In the Inner West the certificate's heritage line does the most work and explains the least. The flood line is quieter and, for some streets, more expensive.

What the heritage conservation area notation constrains

The certificate states whether the land is in a conservation area or is a heritage item. It does not say what follows from that. The rules live in the local environmental plan, the development control plan and the individual conservation area statement, and Inner West Council publishes more than 107 of those statements, one per area, on its heritage conservation areas page. Each statement describes the character the area is meant to keep, which is what an assessing planner measures your extension, front fence or demolition against. The council's address-searchable heritage map shows the boundary; the statement tells you what the boundary means.

Areas that may be about to become conservation areas

Council's 2023 residential heritage review proposed nine new and three extended heritage conservation areas, through the Inner West residential heritage consultation. A certificate records the position on its issue date. A house outside every conservation area today can be inside one after a planning proposal is made, and the certificate will not warn you that a proposal is on foot.

Whether the property floods

The certificate states whether flood related development controls apply. Inner West has no online flood viewer. Its overland flood studies, which council says cover eight of its nine catchments, are published as PDF maps on the flooding page. Property-level detail, the flood levels and depths for one lot, comes from a separate Flood Certificate priced at $436.10, about seven times the $62.00 planning certificate. Buyers assume the cheaper document contains the flood answer; here it plainly does not.

Applications on neighbouring lots

The certificate covers one parcel. Council's DA register has guest access through the same TechnologyOne portal, explained on the track applications page. What is proposed next door is there; it is not on the certificate.

The usual omissions

No planning certificate records easements (those are on title), distances to the station or shops, school catchments, or whether the listing's claims hold up. Those are separate lookups, and Prova's what's checked list is built around them.

Local context: conservation areas and overland water

Heritage conservation is the Inner West's dominant planning constraint, and the scale of it is the point: more than 107 separately described conservation areas across one council. The certificate's yes or no is only the beginning of the question. Two houses in the same street can face different expectations depending on which area they fall in and what its statement says is significant, and a buyer who plans to alter, extend or rebuild needs to read that statement before exchange, not after.

The 2023 residential heritage review is why the boundaries matter even for a house the certificate says is clear. Nine proposed new areas and three proposed extensions mean the map is moving. Until a proposal is finalised into the local environmental plan, the certificate is silent on it, so the consultation record is the only place to see whether the street you are buying into is on the list.

Flooding in the Inner West is overland flooding, rain moving across a dense, built-up catchment, rather than river flooding, which is why it is mapped catchment by catchment and why council issues a paid Flood Certificate rather than an address viewer. If the street has a dip in it, the $436.10 certificate is the document that says what happens there in a big storm; the $62.00 planning certificate only says whether council has rules about it.

How to read your certificate when it arrives

1. Match the land description. Check the lot and deposited plan number and the address against the contract. A certificate for the wrong parcel is worthless.
2. Check the issue date. The certificate speaks as at that date. If the one attached to the contract is months old, ask your conveyancer whether a fresh one is worth ordering.
3. Read the permitted-uses list, not just the zone code. A use appearing under "permitted with consent" means you may apply, not that you will be approved.
4. Treat every "yes" on a hazard item as a question, not a verdict. Bush fire prone land calls for a bushfire attack level assessment. Flood related controls call for the council's flood information. A contaminated land notice calls for the EPA record.
5. Note what is absent. Nearby applications, easements, distances and school catchments are not on the certificate and need their own sources.
6. Take anything you don't understand to your conveyancer before exchange, while it can still change the price or the decision.

Questions about Inner West 10.7 certificates