You can extend or alter a home in Earl's Court, but expect to ask permission for most of it. Most homes are flats, and flats come with fewer automatic rights than houses. A hundred-odd buildings here are listed. The neighbours apply for changes all the time. The clay underneath has its own say about anything heavy.
Earl's Court has 131 listed buildings: one at Grade I, 17 at Grade II* and 113 at Grade II. Listing covers the inside of a building as well as its front, so in any of those 131 even an internal wall, a fireplace or a window needs listed building consent from the council before anyone picks up a tool. For a flat owner in a listed house, the building has more say in the plans than you do.
People here make changes all the time anyway. The council received 386 planning applications for Earl's Court between April 2024 and May 2026, and 144 of them came in the last twelve months. In a district of tall Victorian houses already divided into flats, that is a steady stream of owners trying to win back a little more room. The orchards and market gardens Earl's Court started as had more space to give.
The ground is part of the picture. The whole of Earl's Court is class 3 on the British Geological Survey's shrink-swell scale, a published hazard class for clay that swells when it is wet and shrinks when it dries out. For an extension, that means foundations dug deep enough to get below the movement, and a structural engineer's view before the design is settled. It is a standard engineering problem with a known fix, and it goes in the budget early.
One listed building in Earl's Court is on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register. That means its condition is poor enough for Historic England to keep an eye on it. Repairs may qualify for grant support, and any work will get close scrutiny. It has no bearing on the owner of an ordinary flat a few streets away.
Most of the work happens indoors. Houses have permitted development rights that let some extensions go ahead without a full application. Flats don't have those rights, and with flats making up most of the homes here, nearly any change to the outside of a building means a planning application. In a leasehold flat, the freeholder will want a say as well. Ask the seller for any previous planning decisions and consents for the building, and for the clauses in the lease about alterations. The answer to most extension plans here is written in one of those two places.
Your freedom to alter a home in Earl's Court is middling. The listed buildings are the tight constraint. Everyone else has a long application process ahead of them, but it can be done.