Service
What is already built
can usually be legalised.
Legalisation is a permit application filed on what already stands. The question is not whether it was built without a permit, but whether it can be reconciled with the zoning plan and the rights left on the plot. If it can, this is an ordinary planning file. If not, something built has to change first.
How to tell whether your deviation can be legalised
One question narrows it before any survey: does what was built fit inside the rights left on the plot. If it does, the file is an ordinary application to the licensing authority. If not, it needs a relaxation: publication and a hearing at the local planning and building committee, one to three months by how often it sits.
Three checks that decide the route
- Whether it sits inside the setback lines, where a side breach blocks more files than excess area.
- Whether the use matches the designation: a shed turned into a room is a change of use, not added area.
- Whether it touches common property, public land or a road alignment, where consents sit outside your control.
Passing all three makes it scheduling and paperwork. If one fails, the structure changes instead: less area, a wall moved, an opening closed. Checking the rights left decides which.
How legalisation works
Legalisation always starts from what exists, not from the drawing. A licensed surveyor maps the current state, and against that we check what was approved in the past and what rights remain on the plot. The gap between the three is exactly what has to be legalised.
- A current survey mapping what stands on site today.
- Reviewing historical permits and the rights left on the plot.
- Designing a solution that legalises the structure - sometimes with a relaxation.
- Filing and running the file with the committee through to approval.
- Closing out: receiving the permit and satisfying its conditions.
What each type of deviation actually requires
These are the file types that recur most. A straightforward legalisation runs 30-60 working days from filing to decision, stretched by any row needing publication, an added consultant or a third-party signature.
| Type of deviation | What it adds to the file | What stretches the range |
|---|---|---|
| Addition inside existing rights | Survey map, drawings of existing against proposed | Co-owner signatures, sometimes a structural opinion |
| Addition beyond the rights | Relaxation request, published to neighbours | Objection period and wait for a hearing, one to three months |
| Enclosed balcony or pergola | Area recalculated against the percentages left | Consent of flat owners where a shared wall carries it |
| Split dwelling unit | Parking standard, separate entrance and services per unit | A parking standard that differs by authority |
| Use against the designation | Non-conforming use request, fixed period, published | Fire and accessibility approvals when the public enters |
| Departure from a granted permit | Changes drawing against the original permit and a declaration | An old permit never scanned, forcing an archive search |
When an enforcement letter has already arrived
An enforcement letter changes the order of work, not the destination. Before it, legalisation moves at your pace; after it, the timetable is set partly from outside the planning committee.
Two proceedings in parallel
The file splits: a lawyer handles enforcement (postponements, pleadings, procedural arrangements) while we handle planning: survey, solution, filing, comments. The second feeds the first: a registered application is a document you can produce, an intention to file is not.
What is needed from you that week
Choose a surveyor and pay the advance: without a signed survey map there is nothing to file. Booking takes one to three weeks by region and season, the single item that delays opening the file. Meanwhile we pull the information file.
Do not demolish on your own initiative: it often erases the part that would have passed easily, leaving the problem standing.
What to gather before the first call
- Pull a current land registry extract and check it for co-owners who must sign.
- Find the original permit and its approved drawings, or order a copy from the archive.
- Photograph the deviation inside and out and note the year built, which sets which plan applies.
- Measure the unpermitted area roughly, to know whether it is a few square metres or tens of them before a surveyor is booked.
- Check whether the property is a registered condominium and collect the other owners' details.
- Keep every letter from the committee or enforcement with its date: response deadlines run from it.
- Make no further changes to the structure until it is clear what can be legalised.
- Say up front if a sale or mortgage is coming: it shifts priority between speed and scope.
What it costs, and why there is no single number
Cost has four components; only one is our fee, and the other three move between authorities.
- The survey: priced on plot area and on how many structures and levels must be mapped; one building costs less than a yard of additions.
- Licensing fees: set by the built area submitted, so legalising thirty square metres costs less than a hundred.
- Consultants: a structural engineer on almost every existing building, with safety or accessibility set by the information file.
- Betterment levy: charged on value added by an approved plan or relaxation and assessed by a valuer. Existing rights alone usually create none.
The spread between files comes from one component: whether a relaxation is needed. It adds publication, responses and more committee rounds, which is why the free feasibility check settles that before any quote. Documents are listed on the required documents page.
When legalisation does not end in a permit
Not every deviation can be legalised, and an honest answer beats a filing that will be refused: it costs time and fees and leaves a documented file that is harder to restart from. Three situations recur as real blocks.
- Building on land designated for public use or on a planned road alignment. Until the plan changes this is a proceeding before the district committee, measured in years rather than months.
- A setback breach towards a neighbour who objects, with no rights left for an alternative inside the lines.
- An added dwelling unit where the plan allows no further units and no relaxation covers the gap.
In all three the practical route is to reduce or partly demolish what cannot be legalised and file the rest as one application. That closes the enforcement exposure and returns the property to a state where it can be sold or charged.
What happens after the retroactive permit is granted
A signed permit is not the end: conditions come attached, and only once they are met does the authority treat the property as regularised.
- Meeting the conditions: updated drawings, a supervising professional appointed, the balance of fees paid. Two to six weeks, by consultant availability.
- An inspection on site confirms that what was measured is what was approved; any gap sends the file back and adds a round.
- Updating the registration: the permit does not change the land registry by itself, and some properties need a separate proceeding before the supervisor of condominiums.
This gap usually surfaces at the bank. A lender securing a mortgage on an addition absent from the permit wants the legalisation documents, not news that a file is open. Deal timetables are shorter than committee timetables, so read the permit timeline before signing; our order of work is on the process page.
Questions and answers
Yes, when what stands can be reconciled with the plans on the plot. It is filed like any other application, only it presents an existing state. Two things decide it: the rights left and the setback lines. Exceeding quantity alone means a relaxation; what cannot be reconciled must be reduced.
Legalisation stays open. A stop-work order halts building; it does not bar an application for what already stands. What changes is that the dates are now set partly outside the committee: every letter carries a date, and the response period runs from it. So the first thing we ask for is a copy of everything you received, to know which date we are working against and in what order to act. In parallel we give the lawyer running the proceeding the planning material: what the survey found, what the authority archive holds, and the solution being filed.
A file resting on existing rights usually closes within 30-60 working days of filing, after two to six weeks of preparation set by surveyor and consultant availability. A relaxation or a non-conforming use adds publication and responses, commonly one to three months, by how often the committee sits.
No window closes the option to file. What changes is the plan: a structure built decades ago is judged against a plan since replaced. Sometimes the newer plan is more generous; sometimes it cut rights, so the deviation grew while nobody touched the building.
An objection adds a stage rather than ending the file. With no relaxation there is no publication and no formal route to object. Where one is required the committee hears it and we file a reasoned response; a partly justified objection is met by amending the application, adding one to three months.
Whoever holds the rights files: before completion that is the seller, after it the responsibility is yours. Legalising first slows the sale by months; legalising later lands on you with the enforcement exposure. The usual route is to price it into the deal and name who does it.
Not on every file, and what it rests on tells you in advance. Legalisation that fits inside rights already recorded for the plot usually creates no charging event. Legalisation resting on a new approval may create one, so budget for a possible charge early rather than meeting it at the end of the process. The amount follows the rights added, not the floor area of the building, so trimming a few square metres at the design stage can change it. You can size it first by calculating the rights on the plot, before deciding whether to take the relaxation route.