Application Options

To ensure that your building works or change of use comply with Building Regulations you will need to make a building regulation application to us and provide information that demonstrate your works comply. This is not an application for planning permission.

The type of application you will need to make will depend on when the work takes place, and the type of building as follows:

You may also need to seek planning permission before carrying out any works, unless they are covered by permitted development rights. Applying for planning permission is a separate process and you will need to visit your local council’s website or the Planning Portal to find out more.

Proposed work

Building notice application

You can submit a building notice for most types of domestic works. A building notice does not provide you with prior approval of your works, and everything carried out is at your risk.

We strongly recommend that building notices are only used for simple works such as minor internal alterations, replacement windows, etc.

Whilst a building notice is often seen as a quick and easy option, we can at any stage request detailed plans and calculations to ensure that compliance will be achieved.

A building notice application should not be used unless you are confident that you can meet the relevant standards without our help. This is because our registered building inspectors cannot provide any form of design advice.

If any of the following apply to your project, then you must submit a ‘building control approval application (with full plans)’ (see below):

Public sewer shown on the water companies map of sewers is within 3m of the new building or extension to an existing building (see Severn Trent Water Limited for access to their maps).
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 applies to your building – the order does not apply to individual domestic premises such as private houses or inside individual flats. However, it applies to virtually all other buildings and premises – in the case of buildings containing flats, the order applies to the common parts (including entrance halls, corridors, stairways, plant rooms, and shared facilities) and, under the Fire Safety Act 2021, also extends to the external walls, balconies, windows, and the structure of the building.
The erection of a building fronting a private street.

Your building notice must be accompanied by a site plan to a scale not less than 1:1250 showing the below, or it may not be validated:

The size and position of any building, or the building as extended, and its relationship to any boundaries.
The boundaries of the curtilage of the building, or the building as extended, and the size, position and use of every other building or proposed building within that curtilage.
The width and position of any street on or within the boundaries of the curtilage of the building, or building extended.
Details of any public electronic communications network (Broadband), or exemption from provision. (new dwellings only)

Submit a building notice application

Building control approval application (with full plans)

You can submit a building control approval application (with full plans) for all project. This type of application gives you prior ‘approval’ of your plans and provided you build in accordance with your plans, our inspectors will not request any changes on site.

We strongly recommend a full plans application for any extensions, loft conversions, new dwellings, major structural alterations, and a full plans application must be submitted for all commercial works.

Drawings used to obtain planning permission, and/or which contain little, or no Building Regulation compliance information will not be accepted at validation stage.

You must submit ‘full plans’ showing compliance with all the relevant Building Regulation standards applicable to the project. Applicants may find this difficult and we recommend that they appoint an Architect, Architectural technician or established plan drawer to design and submit the application on their behalf.

It is now a legal requirement that the applicant must establish that the designer has the competence to undertake the design work.

Drawings used to obtain planning permission, and/or which contain little, or no Building Regulation compliance information will not be accepted at validation stage.

Plans must consider the impact of surrounding features such as trees, drains/sewers, and local ground conditions.

Plans and documents must not contain statements such as “to the satisfaction of the building inspector” (or local authority) because it is not the responsibility of a Building Control Body to provide any design advice.

Read our full plans guidance notes.

Submit a full plans application

Work already complete, or substantially complete, including cancellation of an initial notice

Regularisation application

If you have carried out works without applying to us, a registered building control approver, or used a registered competent person*, you can make a retrospective application. The standards we apply are those that were in place when the building work was carried out. If works were carried out before 11 November 1985 you cannot apply for a certificate.

You must provide to the best of your ability, full plans, specifications, calculations etc, which show the existing and completed work. Please note that you will be expected to expose certain elements of the work, which can be destructive.

The submission of a regularisation application does not prevent formal enforcement action being taken for technical or procedural breaches of the Building Regulations.

*A registered competent person is someone registered on a competent person scheme for the purposes of Building Regulation compliance. Schemes exist for electrical installations, replacement windows and doors, gas or oil boilers, solid fuel appliances, some roof work, etc.

Read our regularisation guidance notes.

Apply for a regularisation certificate

Cancellation of an Initial Notice for enforcement reasons

Reversion application

If your registered building control approver (RBCA formerly Approved Inspector) has cancelled your initial notice because the work does not comply with the Building Regulations, you will need to submit a reversion application immediately.

We will liaise with your RBCA to understand the compliance issues, and may request from you plans, correspondence, site inspection records etc, provided by your RBCA. Since the local authority will be issuing a completion certificate, not your RBCA, we may need to ask you to expose certain elements of the work not previously inspected. Like all our applications, a reversion fee is payable for this type of application.

Should the RBCA cancel the initial notice because the work has not started, you can submit either a Building Control approval application with full plans, or a building notice if you intend to start the work in the future. Where work is complete or substantially complete, or occupied, then you should follow our regularisation process.