While Kensington & Chelsea is known for its multi-million-pound homes, designer shops and tree-lined streets, all is not merry in this prime central London hotspot.
The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, along with its equivalent in Westminster, has been unable to process planning permissions, run the searches required to buy and sell a property or pay housing benefits to those in need, due to a cyber-attack which was discovered on November 24, 2025.
A message on the RBKC’s website reads: “The Council is still facing weeks of disruption, and it may take months to get all services back up and running.”
According to the Land Registry, there are around 2,000 property transactions in Kensington and Chelsea every year, and many of these will be affected by the current outage.
Home sales held up
“Local authority searches are an essential part of the property buying process.
“If you're buying with a mortgage, you'll need them to secure the loan — you can't proceed without them. And if you're a cash buyer, and not subject to mortgage due diligence, it's prudent to take them out,” says Nick Gregori, head of research at property data platform LonRes.
Even buying agents negotiating on some of the capital’s most expensive real estate are struggling to find innovative solutions to the problems the cyber-attack has thrown up.
“We have two clients buying in Westminster and are having to get indemnity insurance for the searches as they won’t come back until April as the delays are so long.
“Luckily, we’re borrowing from private banks who will accept insurance, but others who are borrowing from retail banks are unlikely to have the same flexibility,” says Jo Eccles, founder of buying agency Eccord.
Those without access to private banks or large cash reserves are finding purchasing property in the two boroughs virtually impossible.
“It is easy to say: ‘just get an indemnity policy’, but solicitors are wanting to do as much due diligence as they can, which involves trawling through old records that the vendor may have, or their original purchase file and report,” says Robert Green, head of sales at John D Wood & Co. in Chelsea Green.
Planning in limbo
Planning permissions have also been stuck in limbo since November. Architect Emily Ceraudo has two permissions, a listed building consent in South Kensington and a mansard roof extension in Mayfair, on hold due to the cyber attack.
“Both clients did not believe that the whole planning system could be down for so long due to this attack, so I had to forward on emails to prove that this was the reason for the delay! I am also warning new and prospective clients of the potential delays,” says Ceraudo.
“Both councils have suggested they are trying to work on some applications ‘offline’ but I have not been told of an updated timeframe or if ours would be one of these.”
There is talk of builders being pulling off sites and gung-ho clients going ahead with plans and crossing their fingers for planning permission issued retrospectively.
Housing benefit delays
Housing benefit has also been affected and is not being paid, causing stress to the recipients and the landlords whose rent it is paid from.
These include Laurence Turner, a landlord who rents out a studio flat in Chelsea to an elderly lady with health needs.
“I was not aware [of the situation] until the second missed payment as my tenant had not told me that she was relying on housing benefit to pay my rent.
“I am a private landlord and there is nothing contractual between me and the council. In fact, my tenant of five years has always been a great payer, always early,” says Turner.
“Maskells [Turner’s letting agent] also reached out to the council to understand better the situation. My mid-December and mid-January payments were missed.”
In total, Turner was owed £2,870 until a payment came through this week.
“It has been stressful as I still have to honour my mortgage payments; I still have to pay my monthly service charge to the council. Because of the cyber-attack, they did not collect mid-December, but they were able to resume collecting service charge mid-January.
“I did find it ironic that they had only missed one round of service charge payment collection but two rounds of housing benefits. However, I do realise backend financial systems are complicated and I do not see the bigger picture.”
Neither Kensington & Chelsea or Westminster councils have given any indication of when the problems will be resolved but the RBKC told us that systems were being turned back on in accordance with advice from the NCC Group, Met Police and National Cyber Security Centre.
Property searches will be back online “as soon as possible” with a partial search service available prior to full searches being back up and running.
Cllr Elizabeth Campbell, Leader of Kensington and Chelsea Council said: “This Council has been the victim of a sophisticated criminal cyber attack.
“Cyber security is a threat to all public organisations, but to counter this threat, we had invested significantly in our digital, data and technology services and had up to date cyber defence systems. That system worked well mitigating the damage.
“Systems are being turned back on carefully with advice from the NCC Group, Met Police and National Cyber Security Centre on the safest time and order to do this.
“Currently our planning system is undergoing checks. At the moment we cannot conduct local land charge searches or progress new planning applications beyond validating them.
“We know this is frustrating and will work as hard as possible to tackle the backlog once our systems are safely restored.
“Ever since November’s cyber attack, our focus has been on restoring the systems our residents rely on most and it is a huge help for people who really need our support that we have been able to issue £10 million in housing benefits.
“We have been working around the clock with expert partners to test and recover systems and get them back online, ensuring this Council comes back not only safely, but in a better position than before.”
