What are Regularisation Certificates?
The Regularisation Certificate
is a special type of application, and is used only where works have already been carried out without consent after 1st October 1985.
As it is illegal to carry out work requiring Building Regulation consent without first obtaining consent, you should never need to make an application of this type.
There are circumstances however, particularly where work may have been carried out over a year ago, where the Council will not take enforcement action. In these cases, although you may not face prosecution, you will find it extremely difficult to sell the property as any solicitor will almost certainly wish to see proof of Building Regulation Approval.
If you are in this situation, the only way of obtaining Building Regulation consent after the event is to make a Regularisation Certificate application. You would do this by completing a Regularisation Certificate application form and submitting it to the Council together with the appropriate charge and full details of the works carried out.
You will then be contacted by a Building Control Officer who will arrange with you a convenient time to visit the property, and then make an initial appraisal of the work requiring consent. It is highly likely that at this stage you will be asked to "open up" works so that the Officer can see the construction hidden behind plasterboard or under floors etc.
Once the officer has seen all the work considered necessary, he will determine if it complies with the Building Regulations and if so, a Regularisation Certificate will be issued. If it does not however you will be notified in writing of any defects and a Regularisation Certificate will not be issued until they are put right.
Please note that if you decide at this stage not to correct the defects, no enforcement action will be taken by the Council but the charge you have paid will not be refunded.
We strongly advise you not to place yourself in a position where a regularisation certificate is your only option as:
- the charges for Regularisation Certificates are considerably higher those for applications made at the right time.
- you will almost certainly have to "open up" works which is expensive, causes damage to decoration, and at the very least, is highly inconvenient.
- even where the work is found to comply with the Building Regulations (which is rare) it takes two to three weeks to obtain a Regularisation Certificate. Where problems are found it can take considerably longer.
- it is always more expensive to fix problems after the event than to avoid them in the first place.