The building notice procedure lets you start most domestic building work in England and Wales without waiting for your local authority to check detailed plans. You file a short notice with a site plan and fee, give two working days’ notice before starting on site, then call the building control surveyor in at each key stage of construction until a completion certificate is issued. Because nothing is approved on paper first, every part of the work is at your risk: if a surveyor finds something that doesn’t comply, you fix it or take it out.1Planning Portal. Building Notice – Pre-site Approval
When You Can Use a Building Notice
The route is designed for domestic work. Internal structural alterations such as removing a load-bearing wall, bathroom renovations that change drainage, loft conversions, small extensions, and garage conversions can all go through it, provided an experienced builder can reasonably keep the work compliant without a pre-approval cycle.
Several categories are shut out. You cannot use a building notice for work covered by the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, which generally means offices, shops, warehouses, and similar non-domestic premises. You cannot use it for construction close to or over rainwater or foul drains owned by the water company. And you cannot use it where a new building would front onto a private street.2Designing Buildings. Building Notice for Building Regulations Approval If your project falls into any of these categories and you file a building notice anyway, the local authority will reject it.
The alternative is a full plans application. You submit drawings, specifications, and calculations up front, the authority checks them against the Building Regulations, and if they comply, a formal approval notice is issued. That written approval limits the authority’s later enforcement options if you build exactly what was approved. The trade-off is time: plan checks take weeks, and you cannot start until the review is complete.
What You Submit
The paperwork is deliberately light. In most cases you need three things: the application form, a site location plan, and the fee. Detailed construction drawings are not required at submission, though the local authority may still ask for structural calculations, additional plans, or other technical details either before or during the work.1Planning Portal. Building Notice – Pre-site Approval
The form asks for the property address, a description of the proposed work, and the owner’s details. You can usually download it from your local authority’s website or submit through the Planning Portal. Where an extension is involved, the site plan should show the building’s position relative to boundaries and neighbouring properties, typically at 1:1250 scale.
No formal approval notice is ever issued in return. That absence is the defining feature of the route.
Fees
Fees vary by local authority and project type but follow a broadly similar shape across England and Wales. Minor domestic work valued under a few thousand pounds starts at a couple of hundred pounds. Extensions, loft conversions, and garage conversions typically cost between £400 and £900. New-build dwellings often exceed £1,000. The fee is a single payment covering both administrative processing and all subsequent site inspections, which distinguishes it from the full plans route where application and inspection charges are often billed separately. Your local authority’s website lists its current schedule.
Pay when you submit. If the fee is wrong or the site plan is missing, the notice may be rejected or simply not processed.
How Long the Notice Stays Valid
A building notice remains valid for three years from the date you submit it. If work hasn’t started within that window, the notice lapses and you’d need to file a fresh one with a new fee. Once work has actually commenced, the three-year limit no longer applies.
Giving Notice Before You Start on Site
Filing the building notice is not permission to begin. Before any physical work starts on site, you must give the local authority at least two working days’ notice that you intend to commence. This lets the building control team schedule the first visit and set up ongoing oversight of the project.
Starting early, or skipping the notification altogether, is treated seriously. The authority can issue a compliance notice or prosecute, and any work carried out without proper notification may face extra scrutiny. The commencement notice is quick, often a phone call or email to the local building control office, and there is no good reason to skip it.
Inspections You Must Call In
Once work is underway, building control surveyors need to see it at key milestones. You are responsible for phoning them in. The critical point is that many of these inspections cover structural elements that will soon be hidden under concrete, soil, plaster, or finishes. If the surveyor doesn’t see the work before it’s covered, they may make you expose or remove completed work so compliance can be verified.
The typical stages are:
- Excavations, before foundation trenches are filled with concrete, so depth and soil conditions can be checked.
- Foundation concrete, after it’s poured and before brickwork begins on top.
- Oversite preparation, meaning the area under the building floor including hardcore, damp-proof membranes, and insulation, before it’s covered.
- Damp-proof course, when damp-proof materials go into walls or floors, before being concealed.
- Drainage, when pipes and fittings for foul or surface water drains are laid, before backfilling.
- Pre-plaster, covering all structural walls, floors, roofs, and associated insulation before plasterboard or other linings are fixed.
- Completion, a final inspection once all work is finished, within five working days.
Missing an inspection call is where building notice projects most often go wrong. A surveyor who can’t verify hidden work has no choice but to assume the worst, and ordering the removal of finished plasterwork or poured concrete to check what’s underneath is expensive and disruptive. Build the notification calls into the project schedule from day one.
Getting the Completion Certificate
When the final inspection passes, the local authority issues a completion certificate. This confirms that the construction complies with the Building Regulations and is the same certificate whether you used the building notice or full plans route.1Planning Portal. Building Notice – Pre-site Approval
Keep it permanently and store it with your property deeds. When you eventually sell, the buyer’s solicitor will ask for evidence that building regulations approval was obtained for any alterations or extensions, and many lenders require proof of compliance before approving a mortgage. Without the certificate, the sale can still proceed, but it becomes more complicated: indemnity insurance is the common workaround, typically costing between £20 and £300, and it becomes void if anyone has already contacted the local authority to enquire about the missing certificate. Home insurers also expect proper approval to be in place, and damage traced back to unapproved work can be a ground for denying a claim.
Chase the certificate as soon as the final inspection passes. It is far easier to get it at the time than to reconstruct compliance evidence years later.
What Happens If Work Doesn’t Comply
Because nothing was approved in advance, the enforcement backdrop matters. Local authorities have several tools:
- Compliance notices, which can be issued within 12 months of a contravention and require you to remedy the non-compliant work within a set time.
- Stop notices under section 36C of the Building Act 1984, used where the non-compliance creates a risk of serious harm; all work specified in the notice must halt until the problem is fixed.
- Removal or alteration orders under section 36 of the Building Act 1984, requiring you to pull down or alter non-compliant work. A section 36 notice can be issued up to ten years after the work is completed.
- Prosecution under section 35 of the Building Act 1984, in the Magistrates’ Court or Crown Court, where the penalties include an unlimited fine or imprisonment.3Planning Portal. Failure to Comply with the Building Regulations
If you fail to comply with a compliance or stop notice within 28 days, the authority can carry out the remedial work itself and recover the costs from you.3Planning Portal. Failure to Comply with the Building Regulations The ten-year window on section 36 means problems can surface long after the project is finished and you’ve moved on. That is why the discipline of calling in inspections at every stage, and holding on to the completion certificate at the end, is worth taking seriously.