The completion certificate that is not coming
The house is finished and the clients want to move in and, later, to sell with a clean file. The building control completion certificate has not been issued. Going back through the emails, the project architect finds that the plans approval was conditional on details that were never sent: a structural calculation for a beam change, fire door specifications and a drainage layout revision. The contractor thought the architect had sent them. The architect thought the engineer had.
Now everyone is digging through old emails, and the building control surveyor wants the information before they will do their final inspection.
Why building control items get lost
Building control correspondence is spread thin. The full plans submission is made at the start; conditional approvals list outstanding items; queries arrive by email; site inspections are booked by the contractor; and the surveyor's notes may be sent to whoever booked the visit. Different teams, whether local authority or an approved inspector, format these differently. Nobody keeps a single running list of what is outstanding.
- Conditional approvals list items that are never tracked.
- Queries go to one person's inbox.
- Responsibilities between architect, engineer and contractor are unclear.
- Inspection outcomes are not always shared with the architect.
- Outstanding items only surface at completion.
The cost at the end of the job
A delayed completion certificate can hold up the client's move, their mortgage or a future sale, depending on their circumstances. Late information requests mean the practice is doing unpaid work after the fee has been used. And contractors who cannot close out a job are not happy either.
A building control tracker per project
- Each project's building control route and body is recorded, with the submission type and reference.
- Plans approvals and conditional approvals are read when they arrive, and each condition or outstanding item is extracted into a list. The project architect checks the list.
- Each item is assigned to an owner, such as the architect, structural engineer, M&E designer or contractor, with a due date.
- Queries arriving by email are forwarded or picked up from a shared inbox and added to the list.
- The contractor logs inspection bookings and outcomes, including any items the surveyor raises on site.
- Owners are reminded of their items, and the project architect sees everything outstanding in one place.
- Before practical completion, the tracker produces a list of everything the building control body is still waiting for.
Whether work complies with the building regulations is determined by the building control body. The tracker keeps the information flowing to them.
The tracker also helps with the division of work between consultants. Items that belong to the structural engineer or the services designer are visible to them with dates, and when an item has sat with one party for weeks, the project architect can see it and raise it at the next design team or site meeting rather than finding out at completion.
What is outstanding, at a glance
| Item | Source | Owner | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revised beam calculation | Conditional approval | Structural engineer | Sent |
| Fire door specification | Conditional approval | Architect | Outstanding |
| Drainage layout revision | Surveyor query | Contractor | In progress |
| Final inspection | Inspection schedule | Contractor | Not booked |
Completion without the email archaeology
Outstanding items are dealt with during the build, when the people involved still remember the details. The project architect knows what building control is waiting for without searching. Clients get their completion certificate without a scramble at the end.
Is this your practice?
- Conditional approval items are not tracked after approval.
- Building control queries sit in one person's inbox.
- Completion certificates have been delayed by missing information.
- Nobody is sure whether the engineer or the architect sent something.