Making a quality building warrant application: what you need to know

Annex A - Building Standards Guidance

The building standards website contains all relevant building standards legislation and guidance.

Building Approval

Click here to access the guidance listed below:

Customer Journey – explains the building standards system to anyone making home improvements or starting building work. It provides a breakdown of the building warrant process, the certification process and detailed information about the roles and responsibilities of those involved. The Customer Journey includes a useful glossary of terms.

Procedural Handbook – explains the processes for submitting and dealing with building warrant applications and provides detailed information on how the processes work and apply. This is a useful resource for both verifiers and applicants/agents.

Certification – the Certification Handbook explains how the certification process works, the Procedural Guidance on Certification provides helpful information on what to consider when submitting a building warrant application, including the information that should be submitted with a building warrant application, and the Certification Register lists all Approved Certifiers and Bodies.

Making an application – links to eBuildingStandards to submit online applications and contact details for local authority building standards departments.

Building Regulations

Technical Handbooks – The building standards technical handbooks provide guidance on achieving the standards set in the Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004. Building regulations set out technical requirements applicable to building work. There are technical handbooks for both domestic and non-domestic work.

The Technical Handbooks are split into eight sections; sections 0-7. Section 0 General, is the same in both the domestic and non-domestic handbooks and covers aspects such as, types of work not requiring a building warrant and what is considered a conversion. Sections 1-7 cover the technical requirements for Structure, Fire, Environment, Safety, Noise, Energy and Sustainability.

The handbooks contain a list of definitions and explanation of terms used in building standards legislation and guidance.

Local Authority Building Standards Scotland (LABSS)

The LABSS website is a useful resource providing building standards advice and guidance for both applicants and verifiers. LABSS is a not-for-profit membership organisation representing all local authority building standards verifiers in Scotland and also provide the following functions.

Scottish Type Approval Scheme (STAS)

Anyone wishing to have a standard design approved for use on several sites can apply to LABSS. The aim of the scheme is to avoid applicants having to undergo a full building warrant assessment of their design each time the same building is to be constructed in a different authority area.

Once a STAS Certificate has been obtained, a building warrant application must still be made to the relevant local authority verifier, as it will still be subject to checks on site-specific matters.

Dispute Resolution Process

If you disagree with an interpretation of the building standards that the verifier is adopting in the consideration of a building warrant application that you have submitted or will require to submit you may request an interpretation through LABSS dispute resolution process.