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Building control Scotland


davejura

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Hi folks. We have our warrant application in and BC have got back to us to say that our build cost estimate is too low. We half expected this as I have heard this is usual for them, but not adding an extra £115k on as their estimate! Basically that will cost us over £500 more for the warrant.

Has anyone had any success negotiating the fee with BC? Or will they refund a proportion if you can prove that the build cost was a lot less than their estimate? I know our council are cash strapped, but this seems to be taking the proverbial!! 

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I think (but am happy to be proved wrong) that they use standard building costs per m2 for the warrant. There are  a few discounts if you get certain bits externally certified but they don't add up to much. 

 

I too expect to complete for less than the build cost indexed by BC.

 

They will not give you a refund later. Think of it this way - the cost to them is not related to the cost of your build, they just use a per m2 cost as the fairest way of figuring out how much to charge.

 

 

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What size of build and what building cost did you think it would be?

 

Our building warrant was done by the architectural technician who put together all the drawings and technical information and set the build cost estimate, which they believed, but I would have to dig up the paperwork to see what that estimate was.

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22 minutes ago, davejura said:

We are approx 150 sq M and I put in £150,000 as build cost. Planning on doing a lot of the work myself. They are basing their estimate on £1800 sq m!

 

If you paid a main contractor double your estimate for the exact same turnkey house, do you think building control would have double the work?

 

It may be possible to use a QS or similar to provide a professional estimate that they would accept, but it would wipe out any warrant savings. It's difficult to prove the end cost at the beginning and if BC didn't take a standard approach every man and their dog would be trying to claim they were going to build really cheaply simply to reduce their warrant fee!

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Once you go over a certain size/ value, NI LABC work it out the same way. They came back to me in the same manner so I just sent in a single-page estimate for the various different broad items (denoting those that we already had firm quotes for) and pointing out that a hands-on selfbuild obviously had considerable savings in trades labour.

Accepted without further discussion...

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