Building Control Charges
Domestic Extensions and alterations, including Electrical Work
Tameside’s Building Control service is responsible for ensuring architects / builders and property owner comply with the Building Regulations, improving health and safety, energy conservation and disabled facilities associated with all types of buildings.
The charges for Building Regulation work are required to cover the cost of the service with the exception of work that is carried out for the benefit of a disabled person which is charge exempt (See our application form for details).
Standard Charges
Standard Charges are based on the type of work proposed the majority of domestic extensions and alterations are covered by ‘standard charges’ and these are listed in the tables below.
If you are carrying out more than one extension and / or multiple types of alterations, all at the same time, we may be able to reduce the ‘Standard Charges’ – ask for an individual charge assessment.
If the charges are not listed as a standard charge for the type of work you are intending to carry out it will be individually determined and you will need to contact us to discuss further.
Building Notice Applications
As the project does not benefit from having a checked and approved plan as for full plan applications, there is a greater amount of surveyor’s time to check the proposals Building Building Notice increased accordingly to cover this extra time incurred for these types of applications on extensions.
Electrical Safety - 'The use of a qualified 'Part P' registered electrician
Where the works include electrical works / alterations, it is likely that this will also require Building Regulation approval. Reference should be made to Tameside’s ‘Part P leaflet’ – available on the Tameside Building Control web page to determine what works are notifiable to building control.
Building Regulation approval can be achieved in 2 ways: 1. Approval by the Local authority or 2. Self- Certification by a qualified ‘Part P’ registered electrician - who is a qualified electrician having the necessary building regulations knowledge to enable his accreditation body i.e. ELECSA / NAPIT etc, to certify his own work.
We would always encourage the use of a qualified ‘Part P’ registered electrician and our charges are discounted assuming this will be the case. However, should you wish to seek approval from the local authority the relevant charge will increase to reflect our additional costs and you must add the additional electrical charge indicated to the inspection charge or where there is no inspection charge to the one off standard charge.
DIY electrical work is strongly discouraged and will incur a significant additional charge to cover our costs in commissioning a suitably qualified electrician to inspect the works.
*Please note – if you agree on application submission to use a’ Competent Person Scheme Electrician’ and subsequently fail to do so, an additional application for the electrical works will be necessary, together with the additional relevant supplementary charge payment (refer to charges below)*
Payment of Charges
Plan Charge - payable at the time of submitting the application - this charge is for checking the plans and supporting calculations.
Inspection Charge - is payable after the first inspection on site by our Building Control Officers. The applicant will be invoiced for the charge, and it will cover all subsequent inspections; no further charges are payable.
Building Notice Charge - is payable on application submission.
VAT - All Full Plan, Inspection and Building Notice charges are plus VAT at the current rate of 20%. Regularisation applications are VAT exempt (see separate leaflets on Regularisation of illegal works).
Payment by Cheque - Please include separate cheques if submitting a Planning and Building Regulation at the same time. Cheques to be made payable to ‘Tameside M.B.C’.
Rules for Measurement of the Floor Area
Floor area is calculated by measuring the distance between the finished internal wall faces enclosing the area. If there is no enclosing wall, the measurement should be taken to the outermost edge of the floor and the area of each storey should be aggregated to calculate the total floor area.
Important Note - Supplementary Charges
These charges have been set by the authority on the basis that the:
- Construction works are of a traditional nature and there are no complex structural works – nothing ‘out of the ordinary’ i.e. tried and tested masonry construction with a conventional roof structure and internal arrangements.
- There are no unusual site related circumstances i.e. that the ground conditions are suitable for ‘normal foundations’ and we will not be required to repeat foundation inspections in order to verify the building stability or to engage our structural engineers services to review your proposals.
- The charges have also been set on the basis that the design and building work is undertaken by a person or company that is competent to carry out the relevant design and building work and are familiar with construction practices and the Building Regulations requirements. Whilst this is normally the case, there are occasions that this is not the situation and some people require more support and help than others, which will result in you incurring supplementary charges.
- Maximum 12 months duration of the building work from commencement to completion.
We must stress that should your project not conform to these assumptions you will be subject to an additional supplementary charge based on an hourly rate of £66 per hour plus VAT, related to the additional time incurred. Whilst we will always attempt to limit the need for supplementary charges it is difficult to predict these costs.
Pre submission advice
Free for upto one hour and after that £66 per hour can be charged.
Regularisation Charges
A regularisation application must be accompanied by the appropriate charge, which is calculated at a rate of 150% of the Building Notice charge payable had the works otherwise already been carried out (VAT is not payable).
Individually Determined Charges.
If the work you are carrying out are not listed as a standard charge, the charge will be individually determined.
This method of determining the charge mainly relates to larger schemes and includes the following types of building work:
- Applications subject to a reversion charge (work reverting from an approved inspector).
- Building work that is in relation to more than one building.
- Building work consisting of alterations to a domestic property (other than extensions) where the estimated cost exceeds £75000.
- Building work consisting of a domestic extension where the floor area exceeds the maximum shown in Table A.
- Building work consisting of a non-exempt domestic garage or carport with a floor area over 100m2
- Building work consisting of the installation of over 20 windows in a domestic property.
- The building work consists of or includes innovative or high risk construction techniques.
If your building work is defined as requiring an individual assessment of a charge you should Send a message to Building Control providing a description of the intended work. We will contact you within 48 hours.
