How does building control work, from first notice to completion certificate?

Building control is a sequence of inspections rather than a single approval, and the sequence is built around the moments when work becomes invisible. Everything that will be buried gets looked at first. Understanding that shape is what makes the process manageable, because it tells you which days on site are the ones that cannot slip.

Safety

Step by step

1. Register the work before anything starts.Building notice, full plans application, or a building warrant in Scotland. Starting work first leaves you needing a retrospective route, which is more expensive and less certain.
2. Get the inspection stages in writing at the outset.The body will tell you which stages it wants to see and how much notice it needs. Put that list on the site programme, not in an email nobody opens again.
3. Expect inspection at excavation and foundation stage.Before concrete is poured, so the depth, the ground conditions, the proximity of trees and drains and the reinforcement can all be seen. This is the earliest and most important stop.
4. Expect inspection of oversite, damp proofing and drains.The damp proof course and membrane, and drainage runs before they are backfilled — often with a drains test at the end as well.
5. Expect inspection of structural work.Beams, lintels, padstones and connections, checked against the engineer's design. On full plans this is checked against approved calculations; on a building notice it is judged there and then.
6. Expect inspection of insulation and any fire-critical work.Before it is plasterboarded over. Fire separation, cavity barriers, and insulation continuity are the things most often picked up at this stage.
7. Never cover work up before it has been seen.This is the single expensive rule of the whole process. If a stage is missed, the inspector can require it to be exposed, and the cost of that falls on you rather than on them.
8. Book the final inspection and get the completion certificate.At the end, with any competent person scheme certificates for electrics, gas, glazing and heating handed over. The certificate only follows a satisfactory final inspection.
9. Chase the certificate if it does not arrive.Certificates are frequently never requested because the builder has left and nobody follows up. Diarise it and chase until the document is in your hand.

Tips

• The two ways this process fails are work covered before inspection, and the job simply stopping without a final inspection. Both are avoidable with a diary entry.
• Your building control officer is a useful ally rather than an obstacle. Asking them how they want something detailed, before it is built, costs nothing.
• Where a registered trade self-certifies part of the work, their scheme certificate has to reach building control before a completion certificate can be issued. Collect them as they are produced.

Common mistakes

• Assuming the builder called the inspection — Builders forget, and the consequence lands on the homeowner. Ask for confirmation each time, and keep the emails.
• Treating the completion certificate as optional paperwork — It is the entire point of the process. Without it the work is undocumented, and a buyer's solicitor will treat it as a defect in the title package.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask