We're planning to knock through front room to back room on the ground floor of the house. Getting building control involved is going to add
500 quid to the cost of getting the work done. If we just get the work done and just say it was like that when we moved in is there much likelihood of us being found out and penalised for it?tia
Antony
Antony wrote | We're planning to knock through front room to back room | on the ground floor of the house. Getting building control | involved is going to add 500 quid to the cost of getting the | work done. If we just get the work done and just say it was | like that when we moved in is there much likelihood of us | being found out and penalised for it?
If you do it wrong and the house falls down (see today's Times, allegedly), quite high :-)
Owain
Yes.
Load bearing wall presumably?
You may well not get noticed, unless you cause the house/neighbours house to collapse and the insurance company and/or police (if you maimed someone) investigate. In which case, as thick as some plods can be, it wouldn't take great powers of deduction to prove whether the work was done before or after you owned the place (eg: interview previous occupant or neighbours who may have visited before).
This is an area of Building Control I've got a great deal of respect for, unlike Parts M/L/P which are IMHO mostly unnecessary red tape (Parts L and M for sure, many would debate Part P).
500 quid seems a lot for checking the loading calculations and installation of a big lintel and the remaining brick bearings it's sitting on?? I could understand for a whole extension. Have they actually quoted this, or did you just hear it from somewhere?Tim
It is very likely that it will be noticed when you come to sell.
Don't even think about not going there.
If you did that work on a Building Notice round my neck of the woods, the total building control cost would be 118 GBP, assuming the project was valued at 2000 GBP or less. I believe these fees are fairly standard.
David
Depends if you leave it standing or not
You're quite right. I was initially foxed by the impenetrability of Bradford council's charges form which I thought indicated it would cost a lot more than I now realise. It should cost about 90 quid.
cheers
Antony
I found this as well. The charging structures seem to have been written in the dark ages and never updated!
Al
Too late mate! See thread "Great DIY disasters - a late entry"!
how do they assess that ?
I'm doing all the work myself, so fitting half a dozen lintels for example will cost me materials only - do they calculate the work at commercial rates ?
I'm prepared to work for myself for free !
Jeremy
How is that going to add £500 ? I'd look at their fee tables again.
Commercial rates even if you DIY it.
A good point; last one I put in I was in just the same situation. I'm pretty sure they advised me that it was the commercial value of the work. When you complete a building notice form *you* fill in the value of the work yourself, which you have to decide, so it puts the ball in your court... eye up their list of fee ranges, and decide on a total value of the project which will be the highest it can be before the fee increments. They didn't question the amount, but I guess you have to make it reasonably justifiable!
In my case, the minimum fee is 118 GBP for a job up to 2000 GBP, so whaddya know, my projects tend to come in at about 1900...! then there's a big jump to 195 GBP for jobs up to 5000; thereafter it's pretty much pro rata.
David
Hardly encourages people to get the work done ...
A bit like the insulation grants that don't cover DIY ...
well in that case the elves did it for £2000 while I slept :-)
118 quid to glance at the bleedin' obvious - I wish I was so well paid ...If I can ever be arsed to let the men in suits know ... in the unlikely event I ever sell my hovel (only 2 years of mortgage left), would they expect me to cut back the plaster or would photos of my superb handiwork do ?
;-)
Jeremy
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