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20 day Building Control

divorcingjack

Entry posted by divorcingjack

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So, after the last entry - we had a clear site, filled with many, many tonnes of compacted hardcore. All was well. No more digging, the wobbly wall hadn't fallen down, angry neighbours had been pacified with cake. 

 

Onwards and upwards! 

 

Well, not quite. We still didn't have our building warrant. We had applied for a staged warrant for foundations and frame, naively thinking that this would be quicker that going for the full thing. We had submitted the MBC plans, MBC engineer drawings/calcs, SAP calc, double checked Scottish engineer drawings and the engineer certificate that is required in Scotland. We were ready! 

 

Our local council gives the building control department 20 days to respond to applications. 20 working days. We had worked with a chap in that department before on a previous house who is very nice, helpful and reasonable. He had been giving us informal advice and help throughout our nightmare planning process. 

 

Surprisingly, our application didn't get assigned to him. Nevertheless, we were optimistic - it was early February, and we had a provisional date with MBC of the 18th of April for starting the foundations. Everyone thought that was a reasonable lead time; helpful BC chap, the architect, the planner, the engineer, MBC..... 

After all, we had the SER certificate, everything had been checked and triple checked, and we were only asking for the Stage 1 warrant. 

 

I could say a lot more about this process, but I will restrain myself. Let's put it this way - towards the end, my husband and I gave up using words in text messages and communicated about the build solely in memes. We got a list back of queries (after the first 20 days). Fine, we were expecting that. This consisted of points such as why some documentation was printed in A4 when it should have been in A3, a page numbering error, the mention of a standard detail in the MBC drawings that is not standard in Scotland.....the list was 3 pages long. And not in an unreasonably large font. 

 

So, we responded to the points. All of them. Another 20 working days pass - we get a response to the first point, and another question. We send the answer back. Another 20 days - a question about the second point arrives. 

 

You can see how this went. Frustrating is not the word. There aren't really words to express the level of rage that existed within our house during this time. Hence the memes. 

 

We got our warrant on the 6th September. We eventually worked out that there had been a mix-up somewhere and our application was being assessed as if it were non-staged, hence all the seemingly irrelevant questions about electrics and MVHR points. So, the staged warrant was reissued as a full warrant on the same day as I got confirmation that I'd got a new job after redundancy. That was a good day, and the hashtag #ginforbreakfast was born. 

 

 

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ProDave

Well done.

 

You need the patience of a saint and a good sense of humour to build a house and deal with "officialdom"

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Onoff
44 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Well done.

 

You need the patience of a saint and a good sense of humour to build a house and deal with "officialdom"

 

That's me out of ever doing it then. I'd go postal on someone.

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Ian

You've got my sympathy - as an (English) architect I've also had the unfortunate experience in having to deal with the enormously frustrating, flawed and inefficient Building Warrant system in Scotland.

 

For those Forum members not resident in Scotland its important to note that the system in England and Wales is very different and much less bureaucratic. You're allowed to start work on site 1 week after submitting notice to the BCO.

 

The downside of the system in England and Wales is that the regs are sometimes treated in a more lax manner.

Edited by Ian
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ProDave

I still remember the pain and worry. BC rejected our drainage scheme and for a few worrying weeks no acceptable drainage scheme = no building warrant = no house.

 

The plus points of the Scottish system is you have to have everything detailed, so once you have a building warrant, as long as you build what is on the drawings it will be signed off.

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