Building Control charges seem high – why?

The Building Control service is required to cover all its costs from Charge income (none of the burden can fall on the council taxpayer) so we have to set Charge levels accordingly.

Our charges reflect the need to visit a project an average of 8 times as work progresses (and remember, we guarantee to do so the same day provided you contact us before 10.00am) to check that the Regulations are being complied with. Our Charges could only be lowered by making corresponding reductions in our service, which would mean waiting longer for plans to be approved and for inspectors to visit sites.

Feedback from our customers indicated that they would prefer that our service standards are maintained, but we promise our charges will be no higher than necessary to achieve this.

Do we get value for money?

The Council employ experienced and professional Building Control Officers to deal with your application, who between them have a wealth of local knowledge. Our officers spend a considerable amount of time checking your plans, advising on how to comply with the Regulations and, in particular, carrying out regular site inspection visits. Remember that the charge is fixed no matter how difficult your application may be to deal with and covers you for as many inspection visits as the Building Control Officer feels necessary – be that 1 or 100.

We are easy to contact, give expert advice and respond the same day to your requests for a visit – few other organisations can offer that degree of service. If you compare our charges with those of calling out a professional surveyor just once or twice, I hope you will agree that they are, in fact, more reasonable than they at first appear.

If you do not check plans on Building Notice applications, why are the fees the same as for Full Plans Applications?

As no plan check is made, additional reliance is placed on the inspection stage of the process to ensure the Building Regulations are complied with.

This translates into a requirement for either more inspections being necessary, or the inspections made taking longer than would be the case with a Full Plans application, hence the total cost if the same.

Is a Completion certificate the same as a guarantee or warranty?

No. The completion certificate simply confirms that, as far as the Council have been able to ascertain, the work on-site complies with the current Building Regulations. This means that inspections will have been carried out at the appropriate times, and that any problems found were put right. The Council do not however provide a guarantee or warranty on the work, although we hope to be able to offer such a scheme sometime in the near future.

If you are buying a new or altered property, always make sure your solicitor checks that a completion certificate has been issued for the work. This is particularly important as if we later find defects, it may be you who is responsible for correcting them rather than the previous owner!

What if things go wrong?

If problems arise during the progress of works our officers will do their best to help find solutions, and will be happy to offer advice to both you and your builder.

Ultimately however the Building Control service is not a warranty organisation and if the building work fails to meet your needs or expectations your redress would be against your builder, not the Council. For this reason you should take great care in selecting a builder who is reliable and who is still likely to be around if you have problems two or three years into the future.

When the Building Control Officer visits the site he talks to the builder but not me – why?

I assure you that we are not being disrespectful, but the majority of our clients do prefer us to deal directly with the builder.

We always welcome the involvement of the owner in these discussions so if you wish to be involved, please make your wishes known to the Building Control Officer during the first visit. If you do wish to have a confidential discussion with the Building Control Officer at any stage, please ask (or make a separate arrangement by phone) and we will be happy to oblige.