Building control site inspections
To book an inspection please contact us on 01904 551333 or email us at building.control@york.gov.uk.
During busy periods we may require up to 4 working days’ notice. The cut off point for booking a potential next day inspection is 3.00pm and is subject to availability and therefore cannot be guaranteed.
To ensure that your building works comply with the Building Regulations and other relevant legislation, a Registered Building Inspector (RBI) will inspect your project as it progresses.
You must tell us when certain stages of building work, for either a full plans or Building Notice application have been reached.
The stages are as follows:
- When building work is about to commence;
- When building work has been completed;
- Before a building is occupied, but the work has not been completed; and
- Any inspections we think are necessary and which we have told you about.
A Notice of Commencement should be submitted once you know the date that you are going to be starting the work. This should only be submitted if a Building Notice or a Full Plans application has already been deposited with Building Control.
This form is also included with the paper version of the Full Plans and Building Notice applications (download Full Plans and Building Notice Application form).
The inspection stages outlined above are necessary to check that any work that would otherwise be covered over has been built to meet with minimum building standards and with the details on plans approved for building regulations purposes.
Inspections are limited to only those necessary to check that building regulations have been met. They are not quality control or warranty inspections, nor are they inspections for other legislation; for example, planning permission.
It is advisable to take a personal involvement in any building work and by arranging to meet with the builder and the Registered Building Inspector (RBI) together during inspections. This will assist in understanding any problems that may occur and what work or information needs to be provided to resolve any non-compliance situation, before your builder leaves the site.
In some cases, inspections might be combined, such as a commencement inspection with a foundation inspection, or a drainage inspection with the inspection of a floor slab.
If we have not been told that building work has reached a stage that is necessary to be inspected, then we might ask you to expose, lay open or pull down as much of the work as we feel is necessary to allow us to inspect the work. Moreover, it might not be possible for us to give you a completion certificate if we've not been able to inspect parts of the work. We could also take enforcement action, which may result in you being fined for not having given us the proper notice to inspect.