Part P and council charging for tests - and refuting ODPM circular guidance note

[dg]

Firstly, I'm aware of Part P clause 1.26 etc, and Anne Hemmings' letter to all councils dated 30/3/06 advising that the costs in testing are at the councils expense and not the homeowners.

A local council is asking for a regularisation fee to certify the electrics done on an extension which was done under full plans route. Having been asked to clarify their position regarding the authority to charge any extra fee for the electrical testing, the councils written response states a number of points to support their right to charge.

1. Local Authorities must fully recover the costs in carrying building control functions and they must ensure that any charges for checking full plans/building notices are pre-fixed in their charges scheme as required by the Building (Local Authority Charges) Regulations 1998.

1. The full plans application was accompanied by a statement that "All electrical work must be designed, installed and tested by a person competent to do so".

2. Supervision of Part P electrical installation work was not included in the fees levied at the time the application was deposited. Had it been stated at that time of that the electrical work was to be carried out by someone not registered to self-certify, a fee would have been levied.

1. The electrical installation should have been notified to the Council before work commenced and the appropriate fee paid in accordance with the scheme of published charges

All these seems nonsense to me as it is all factually correct, but does not actually explain the councils authority to charge extra to check the electrics. It is obvious that the extension would include electric work, and the council are saying that they would have charged an additional fee at the time of checking the plans "had they of known" that they would be checking the electrics - which is blatantly contrary to Anne Hemmings clarification.

Any pointers as to how to respond?

dg

[Roger Mills]

Ask to see a copy of the scale of fees which applied at the time and showing the additional fee for electrical testing. If there is no such document, you'll have called their bluff in one go.

If they *do* produce it, you can challenge its valididy in the light of Anne Hemmings' letter - taking it up with your MP and with the ODPM (or whatever it's called today!) if necessary.

[Roger]

The message

from dg contains these words:

Given that the local council appears to be in conflict with central government perhaps a complaint to your MP might provoke a bun fight. At the very least your MP should be able to establish whether the Government has the power to make the council toe the line even if it lacks the inclination.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember dg saying something like:

If the council genuinely used 'of' instead of 'have' I'd be sitting them down and instructing them in the use of worms.

[boltmail]

That isn't conclusive, as councils are entitled to recover their BC expenses through the fee structure.

In which case you can see why they want to revisit the basis on which they assessed the fee.

I don't see anything prohibiting that, provided the LA did actually have a scheme in place at the time of the application which set a fixed fee for electrical inspection and testing. It seems consistent with the legislation and SIs.

Seems fair enough, if the application did say it would be done by an approved person.

I am not sure it is obvious that the comment in the 2006 Circular meant that LAs cannot recover the expenses through a valid fixed fee scheme. It could just have been intended as a statement that they can't pass on the cost of an invoice for an electrical test directly to you. Even if the Circular did mean to say that LAs can't recover those expenses from BC fees, it isn't legally binding. It's just one person's interpretation of the legislation, and that person wasn't a judge. I've looked at the legislation, and I can't see what would bar the recovery of testing and inspection expenses via a proper fixed fee scheme, and the rules for those do not appear to preclude a special 'part p' charge provided it is on a fixed scale of some sort.

Your best chance is if you can show that there was no relevant fixed fee for non-approved person electrical works in place at the time of your application. I don't think the Circular is going to assist you very much.