Building Regs Explained
Plan approval, the SANS 10400 standards, inspectors and occupancy certificates, without the jargon.
Almost any building work bigger than a garden wall needs the local council's blessing before you start and its sign-off before anyone moves in. The rules come from the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act, and the technical detail lives in the SANS 10400 series of standards. This hub explains when you need approved plans, how the approval process works, what building inspectors look for, and why the occupancy certificate at the end matters. Get this right and the job is clean; skip it and the council can stop the work, fine you, or refuse to let the building be used.
The law and the standards
Two things work together. The National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act 103 of 1977 is the law: it says you cannot erect a building without approved plans, gives the local authority the power to approve, inspect and enforce, and makes building without approval an offence. SANS 10400 is the set of national standards that spells out the technical requirements, the National Building Regulations in practical detail, broken into parts (each lettered, for example structural design, fire protection, stormwater, plumbing, energy efficiency and so on). When your plans are assessed, they are checked against these standards. You build to SANS 10400 and you get approval; you ignore it and you do not. The Act is national, but it is your local municipality that administers and enforces it, so the council is who you deal with.
When you need approved plans
As a rule, you need council-approved building plans before you start any new building, addition, or structural alteration. That covers new houses, extensions, additional rooms, garages, and structural changes such as removing or moving load-bearing walls. There is a short list of minor works the council can exempt from full plans (small non-habitable structures, certain minor alterations), but the list is set by each municipality and the safe move is always to ask the council before you assume something is exempt. The owner is legally responsible for having approved plans, but as the builder you are the one on site when the inspector arrives, so make sure the plans are approved and on site before you break ground. Building first and applying later is the most expensive way to do it.
How plan approval works
Plans are drawn by a competent person (an architect or draughtsman) and submitted to the local municipality, usually with the relevant SANS 10400 design details and any specialist sign-offs the job needs. The council's building control office assesses them against the regulations and either approves, approves with conditions, or sends them back for changes. Depending on the council and the scale of the job, you may also need separate approvals or registrations (for example water, sewer and electrical connections, or environmental or heritage clearances on older or sensitive sites). Approval timeframes vary by municipality and by the size of the project, so build the wait into your programme rather than promising the client a start date before the plans are stamped.
Building inspectors and on-site inspections
Once work starts, the council's building inspector visits at set stages to check the work matches the approved plans and meets the standards. The classic hold points are the foundation trenches before you pour, the slab and damp-proofing, the drainage before it is covered, and the structure as it goes up. You give notice when you reach each stage and you do not cover up work (close trenches, backfill drains) until it has been inspected and passed, because uncovering it later to prove it is on you. The inspector can issue instructions, and if work is dangerous or unapproved they can order it stopped. Keep the approved plans on site, know your inspection stages, and call the inspections in on time; that is what keeps the job moving.
The occupancy certificate
The job is not legally finished when the building looks finished, it is finished when the council issues the occupancy certificate (sometimes called a certificate of occupancy). It is the council's confirmation that the building was completed in accordance with the approved plans and the regulations and is safe to use. No one is supposed to move in or use the building until it is issued. To get it you need to have passed the inspections and supplied the certificates the council requires, which commonly include the electrical certificate of compliance and, depending on the work, plumbing, gas or other sign-offs. For the owner this is the document that protects the property's value and is often demanded on sale or by an insurer, so it is worth chasing to the end rather than leaving the final certificates and inspections undone.