Building completion certificates
How to apply for a completion or partial completion certificate after contractors have completed the building work for higher-risk building work or building work to an existing higher-risk building.
Applies to England
You must not allow residents to occupy a high-rise residential building until it has been registered. You need a completion certificate to register a high-rise residential building.
You will need both:
- the building control approval application reference
- access to the email address used for the original building control approval application
Higher-risk buildings
A higher-risk building is a building that has at least:
- 7 storeys or is at least 18 metres high
- 2 residential units or is a hospital or a care home
A higher-risk building with at least 2 residential units must be registered with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) before people live there.
Read the full guidance on buildings that BSR is the building control authority for.
Documents you must upload
You will need to upload a copy of the latest version of the following documents when you apply for a completion certificate:
- drawings and plans
- construction control plan
- change control plan
- mandatory occurrence reporting plan
- building regulations compliance statement
- fire and emergency file
If you are applying for a completion certificate for more than one stage of work, upload these documents for each of the stages.
You must also upload copies of:
- your notice of completion with the date the work was completed
- your change control log – showing all changes made to the original documents, cross-reference the changes to the related notifiable change requests or major change applications
- your partial completion strategy, if applying for a partial completion certificate
- your partial occupation plan, if applying for a partial completion certificate
- plans showing locations of any new drains and sewers
- information about drainage precautions if you’ve built over, or within 3 metres of, the centreline of an existing drain, public or private sewer or disposal main
- compliance declarations – signed by each principal designer and principal contractor on the project confirming they have fulfilled their duties
- a client confirmation statement – you must sign this, confirming that to the best of your knowledge the building works meet the relevant building regulations
- a statement confirming that the information about the building has been handed over to the responsible person or principal accountable person, signed by you and that person
Category B work documents
For category B work to an existing higher-risk building, you must upload:
- updated versions of the documents that were required as part of your initial building control application
- any documents subsequently requested by BSR
BSR will compare the updated documents to the original versions, your change log, and any changes you submitted throughout the build. Your application and documents will be assessed against the relevant building regulations requirements.
Partial completion certificates
You can only apply for a partial completion certificate if you included a partial completion strategy in one of the following:
- your original building control application
- an application for a major change
If proposing a partial completion strategy, provide a partial completion strategy document as part of your building control or change application.
If you do not have BSR approval for your partial completion strategy, you must not allow people to occupy any part of the building while work continues.
If you included a partial completion strategy in your original building control application, you:
- must apply for a completion certificate for each part of the building you have completed
- must not allow people to occupy part of the building until you have a partial completion certificate for that part
Prepare a plan showing the parts of the building that people will occupy while work continues. Upload a copy of that plan as part of your application.
Partial completion strategy
If people will occupy parts of the building while building work continues on other parts, you must prepare a partial completion strategy.
If you want to occupy a building this way, you need to think about how the people living there will be kept safe. They should be as safe as they would be if the building was complete. You need to think about how to achieve this at the design stage.
Your partial completion strategy should explain how it will be safe to occupy parts of a building before all the building works are completed.
Propose the measures, strategies and policies the building owner should adopt to manage and maintain safety in each completed part of the building while other parts are being built.
Give details of any assumptions you have made.
Give details of how:
- each part of the building will meet building regulations
- you have considered risks to each completed part that could be caused by the continuing building work
- non-residential parts of the building will not affect the overall building meeting building regulations
- all safety features (such as sprinkler systems) will work in the completed parts regardless of the remaining building work
BSR will not accept applications for partial completion for individual flats or an individual floor of flats in a building.
Charges
When you submit your application, you have to pay a charge. Charges for completion certificate or partial completion certificate applications are set out in the BSR charging scheme on the Health and Safety Executive website.
BSR will not issue your completion certificate if there are overdue charges related to your application.
Buildings in progress
The following guides will help you understand the building control process for buildings in progress:
- transitional building control approval for work on existing higher-risk buildings
- transitional building control approval for new higher-risk buildings
Keep BSR informed: notices and notifications
After BSR approve your building control approval application, you can submit notices and notifications.
You will need both:
- the building control approval application reference
- access to the email address used for the original building control approval application
To change the email address associated with the application, contact your case officer.
Notices
You must submit these notices during the building project
- notice of intention to start work
- notice of commencement
- notification of building work reaching a point specified in your inspection schedule
- notification of inspection
For staged applications, the notices and inspection notifications relate to the stage of work. Submit separate notices and notifications to BSR for each stage.
When your principal contractor gives you one of these notices or notifications, submit them to BSR through the manage a building control approval application service.
Notifications
Tell BSR if the client, principal designer or principal contractor changes by submitting a notification through the manage a building control approval application service. You will need to upload the compliance declaration from each outgoing dutyholder.
If the changes affect more than one building control approval application, you must submit a notification for each application the change affects.
Contact your case officer to tell BSR about changes to:
- the contact details for the principal designer or principal contractor
- your contact details – including if you need to change the email address you use to access the online service