Failure to comply with regulations

How are the Building Regulations enforced?

The Building Control Partnership has a general duty to enforce the Building Regulations on behalf of Fareham, Gosport and Havant Boroughs and Portsmouth City Council and will do so by informal means wherever possible.

Where a Registered Building Control Approver is providing the Building Control Service, the responsibility for checking that the Regulations are complied with, will lie with that Registered Building Control Approver. They will mainly do this by advising you. However, they do not have enforcement powers. In a situation where they consider your building work does not comply with the Regulations they will not issue a final certificate and cancel the initial notice by notifying your local authority. If no other Registered Building Control Approver takes on the work, the building control service will automatically revert to  the Local Authority Building Control Service. From this point on your local authority will have enforcement powers to require you to submit a Reversion application which will incur a charge and also for you to alter any non-compliant work previously carried out, if they consider this necessary.

The Legal background

If a person carrying out building work contravenes the Building Regulations, the local authority or another person may decide to take them to the magistrates’ court where they could be fined an unlimited amount for the contravention, and up to £50 for each day the contravention continues after conviction and/or imprisonment for up to two years. This action (under section 35 of the Building Act 1984) will usually be taken against the builder or main contractor, although proceedings should be taken within six months of the offence being discovered and within two years of the offence being committed. Alternatively, or in addition, the local authority may (under section 36 of the Act) serve Compliance Notice and/or a Stop Notice on the owner requiring them to alter or remove work which contravenes the regulations or, in the case of a serious risk of harm, to stop work. If the owner does not comply with the Compliance Notice, the local authority has the power to alter or remove the work and recover the costs from the owner.

What happens if you disagree with a local authority’s compliance or stop notice?

Normally a local authority’s compliance notice will give you 28 days to rectify the building work.

If you wish to contest the notice on the grounds that you believe your building work does comply with the Building Regulations, you can advise your local authority that you would like to commission a written report from a suitably qualified person with a view to persuading the authority to withdraw the notice. In this event the 28 day period to rectify the building work is extended to 70 days. Alternatively, you can appeal against the notice in the magistrates’ court and demonstrate that your building work complies. This option can be used either as an alternative to the above, or if proceedings under that option have been unsuccessful. You should make your appeal within 28 days of receiving the notice or within 70 days if you have used above option first.

If you are successful with either option, your local authority may have to pay your costs.

If, on the other hand, you believe that your work cannot be expected to comply with one or more of the requirements in the Building Regulations because they are too onerous or inapplicable, you do have the right to apply to your local authority for a relaxation or dispensation of the requirement(s) in question in order for your completed building work to be considered to achieve compliance. Your application should be made within 28 days of receiving the compliance or stop notice from your authority. If they refuse your application you have a right of appeal (in England) to the Building Safety Regulator or (in Wales) to the Welsh Assembly Government against that refusal, providing you do so within 21 days of that decision.

Impact on Selling the Property

Notwithstanding the possibility of enforcement action, you should bear in mind that, if the local authority considers that building work carried out does not comply with the Building Regulations and it is not rectified, the authority will not issue you with a completion certificate and the contravention may come to light through a local land search enquiry when you wish to sell your property.