References

Costs & Pricing

181 sources in the library on costs & pricing. Each one says what the document covers and what it is good for. Name a source to see which document it is and where to read it. One at a time. Page 4 of 5.

1. very strong RN-RN756R

   HM Revenue and Customs (GOV.UK)

   The second, narrower relief in Notice 708/6, covering paragraphs 3.1 to 3.12, for grant-funded heating work that falls outside the energy-saving materials list in section 2. The reduced rate of 5% applies where the installation is grant funded, involves a heating appliance, a central heating system or a renewable source heating system, and is supplied to a qualifying person living in their sole or main residence. A qualifying person is someone aged 60 or over, or in receipt of one of the benefits listed at paragraph 3.8: Child Tax Credit other than the family element, Council Tax Benefit, Disability Living Allowance, Disablement Pension, Housing Benefit, income-based Jobseeker's Allowance, Income Support, War Disablement Pension or Working Tax Credit. Paragraph 3.5 records that the grant scheme for connected security goods has been withdrawn. The relief attaches only to the grant-funded portion of the work, so a household topping up a grant with its own money pays the standard rate on that part.

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2. very strong RN-Z2OY0Q

   Homes and Communities Agency with Ove Arup and Partners

   the regional adjustment factors the cost book uses to carry a national rate to a region, Outer London 1.00 and Inner London 1.08 against Northern 0.86 and Wales 0.90. It is cited as the regional half of the book's derived London trade day rates rather than for the demolition costs the guidance is named for, which is why a London plasterer's rate points here

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3. very strong RN-57XOOI

   Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

   Planning practice guidance on CIL, last updated 17 June 2026. Confirms the self-build exemption for a new dwelling built by someone who will occupy it, provided the exemption is claimed and a commencement notice submitted before work starts. Householder extensions under 100 square metres fall within the minor development exemption; larger residential extensions can claim exemption under regulations 42A and 42B where the owner occupies the house as their sole residence. A late commencement notice triggers a surcharge of 20 per cent of the notional chargeable amount, capped at £2,500.

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4. very strong RN-0VXMQM

   Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government

   The government guidance and template notices for the Act that governs basement digs, underpinning and work to a shared wall. It groups the notifiable work into three sections: section 1, building new on or at the boundary between properties; section 2, work to existing party walls or structures including cutting into a party wall, altering its height or depth, removing chimney breasts and rebuilding the wall; and section 6, excavation near a neighbouring building's foundations, for which the page supplies both a 3 metre notice and a 6 metre notice template. Notice periods differ by type: a section 2 party structure notice needs at least 2 months, while a line of junction notice and an excavation notice need at least 1 month. Where the adjoining owner dissents, the Act provides a dispute resolution mechanism through surveyors who settle the matter by an award. The templates are the practical value here: a note can link the exact notice a homeowner has to serve.

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5. very strong RN-W2AUG5

   Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (GOV.UK)

   Scope and exemptions for the Building Safety Levy. It bites on applications for building control approval submitted on or after 1 October 2026 for major residential development, defined as 10 or more new dwellings or 30 or more new bedspaces in purpose-built student accommodation, and it cannot be avoided by splitting one planning permission across several smaller building control applications. The key line for domestic renovation: extensions and improvements that create no new dwelling or bedspace are outside the levy entirely and require no levy information. Exempt persons are non-profit registered providers of social housing and their wholly owned subsidiaries. Exempt dwellings include most affordable, social and intermediate rent homes, shared ownership, qualifying discounted rental, First Homes restricted to 70% of market value on resale by planning obligation, and supported housing. Schedule 1 excludes school accommodation, domestic abuse refuges, hospitals, children's homes, hotels and hostels, religious establishments, care homes and hospices, secure facilities, almshouses, homeless temporary accommodation and armed forces or MoD housing.

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6. very strong RN-01PEVO

   Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (GOV.UK)

   How the Building Safety Levy is calculated in England. The charge is a rate per square metre of chargeable floorspace, with a separate rate for every local authority area set out in Schedule 3 of the Building Safety Levy (England) Regulations 2025. The previously developed land rate is exactly half the standard rate, and a site qualifies only if at least 75% of the land within the planning permission boundary meets the previously developed definition. The spread across the country is wide: Kensington and Chelsea £100.35 standard and £50.17 previously developed, Camden £87.12 and £43.56, County Durham £12.70 and £6.35. Chargeable floorspace is measured as gross internal area following the RICS Code of Measuring Practice 6th edition, and only new residential floorspace counts. Guidance published 10 July 2025, updated 2 July 2026. Relevant to renovation costing mainly as a new cost line on any scheme that crosses into major residential development.

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7. very strong RN-Q89GDQ

   Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (GOV.UK)

   The only official national dataset that physically inspects homes and costs their condition, and therefore one of the few sources in which a repair cost figure has a defensible provenance. A continuous national survey commissioned by MHCLG, combining household interviews with physical inspections of a subsample of properties, covering housing circumstances and the condition and energy efficiency of housing in England. Latest data is 2024-25, with publications running through July 2026 on housing quality, energy efficiency, demographics and household resilience, and a January 2026 briefing on modelling a new Decent Homes Standard. The condition strand is where the Decent Homes Standard failure rates, disrepair measures and modelled costs to make a dwelling decent are published, but those figures live in the individual reports and the technical documentation rather than on this collection page, so cite a named report and year rather than the collection.

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8. very strong RN-I9Q8GB

   Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (GOV.UK)

   Sets out the framework for planning application fees under the 2012 Fees Regulations and points to the current schedule (planning fees: annual indexation from 1 April). From 1 April 2025 all planning fees increase each year by CPI inflation from the preceding September, capped at 10 per cent even if inflation is higher (paragraph 002b, revised 16 April 2025). The fee for a lawful development certificate for proposed development is half the application fee for planning permission (paragraph 024, revised 22 February 2018), and a fee for a prior approval application is payable under regulation 14 of the 2012 Fees Regulations (paragraph 023). Page last updated 16 April 2025.

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9. very strong RN-WRETZK

   Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (GOV.UK)

   The planning practice guidance on section 106 agreements, the other developer cost alongside the Community Infrastructure Levy. A planning obligation may only be taken into account in granting permission if it passes the three tests in regulation 122 of the Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 as amended in 2011 and 2019: it must be necessary to make the development acceptable in planning terms, directly related to the development, and fairly and reasonably related in scale and kind to the development. These are set out at Paragraph 002 (Reference ID 23b-002-20190901) and repeated as policy in the NPPF. Paragraph 020 (Reference ID 23b-020-20190315) covers renegotiation: parties may vary an obligation by agreement at any time, and where agreement fails an application to modify or discharge may be made under section 106A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, but only where the obligation predates April 2010 or is more than 5 years old. Paragraph 006 (Reference ID 23b-006-20190901) records that the 2019 amendments removed the pooling restriction, so CIL receipts and section 106 contributions may now fund the same infrastructure.

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10. very strong RN-3DRGM5

    mygov.scot (Scottish Government)

    Scotland's equivalent of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, and materially more generous. Two grant streams run in parallel: up to £7,500 for energy efficiency improvements such as insulation, and up to £7,500 for a clean heating system such as a heat pump, giving a combined maximum of £15,000. Rural and island households get up to £1,500 extra on each stream, taking the clean heating grant to £9,000 and the combined ceiling to £18,000. The balance of the cost can be taken as an interest-free loan. Grants are tied to improvements recommended in the property's Energy Performance Certificate, Home Energy Improvement Report or Home Renewable Selector Report, and the page warns that for some improvements the maximum grant is lower than the headline figure, with the per-measure caps held on the Home Energy Scotland site rather than here. The page does not state the loan cap, admin fee or repayment term.

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11. very strong RN-MQ9OJ9

    Northern Ireland Housing Executive

    Northern Ireland runs a materially wider set of housing grants than Great Britain, administered by the Northern Ireland Housing Executive rather than a local council. Six schemes are listed. The Affordable Warmth Scheme addresses fuel poverty and energy inefficiency for low-income households. The Disabled Facilities Grant adapts a disabled person's home, but unlike in England it requires a health trust occupational therapist to recommend the work. The Repair Grant helps landlords where a council has issued a statutory notice for repairs. The Renovation Grant is for homes inspected and found unfit to live in, and the property must be the applicant's main or only home. The Replacement Grant is available only where the home is in a rural area, is unfit to live in and repair is not an option. The Home Repair Assistance Grant covers small-scale repair work and improvements. The Renovation, Replacement and Home Repair Assistance Grants have no equivalent in England.

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12. very strong RN-N39C7H

    Office for National Statistics

    ONS monthly and quarterly construction output bulletin, edition released 13 August 2026 covering June 2026 output, new orders and the Construction Output Price Indices for Quarter 2 (April to June) 2026; next release 11 September 2026. Reports total construction output up 0.3% in Q2 2026 on Q1 2026, with new work up 0.4% and repair and maintenance up 0.2%; five of nine sectors grew, infrastructure new work leading at 1.9%. Monthly output fell 0.1% in June 2026, after falls of 0.8% in May and 0.1% in April. Carries a 13 August 2026 correction notice about a public housing new work data error from January 2022 that raised the output level by about 1.2%.

    Name this source
13. very strong RN-HE12WE

    Office for National Statistics

    The ONS Construction Output Price Indices (OPIs) dataset, covering January 2014 to June 2026 for the UK, released 13 August 2026 with the next release on 12 November 2026. Published as a single xlsx of about 79.4 KB by the ONS Construction statistics team, with previous editions archived. This is the official index for deflating and uprating UK construction prices, including the repair and maintenance and private housing series a renovation cost note would use to move an older price to current money.

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14. very strong RN-UICQEC

    Office for National Statistics

    The ONS annual round-up, useful for putting a single job in the context of the market that prices it. The value of construction new work in current prices in Great Britain during 2024 rose 1.4% to £140,684 million. In Quarter 3 (July to September) 2024 there were 370,770 VAT and PAYE registered construction firms operating across Great Britain, a count that explains the fragmentation behind quote-to-quote variation. Construction-related employees excluding self-employment rose 0.6% in Q3 2024 against Q3 2023 to 1.4 million workers, and the exclusion of self-employment matters because much of the domestic repair and maintenance trade sits outside that figure. The article is a summary; the new work versus repair and maintenance split and the private housing RM&I series live in the linked datasets rather than in this text. Pair it with the ONS construction output price indices for the deflator.

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15. very strong RN-6SC9FZ

    Office for National Statistics

    ONS bulletin from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings, released 23 October 2025 with April 2025 data. Median weekly earnings for full-time employees were 766.60 pounds in April 2025, up 5.3% in nominal terms and 1.1% in real terms on the year using CPIH. Median gross annual earnings for full-time employees were 39,039 pounds in April 2025 against 37,439 pounds in April 2024, up 4.3%. All 2025 estimates are provisional. Useful as the employed-earnings baseline against which self-employed trade day rates are compared.

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16. very strong RN-05J0NJ

    Ofgem

    The unit rates that any running-cost or payback calculation must be built on, published by the regulator that sets them. For the cap period 1 October to 31 December 2026, on a direct debit tariff in England, Scotland and Wales: electricity 26.32 pence per kWh with a standing charge of 54.83 pence per day, and gas 7.97 pence per kWh with a standing charge of 29.68 pence per day. The headline cap figure for the period is £1,723 a year for a typical household, a 4% increase on the previous quarter. Two cautions when citing: the cap limits unit rates and standing charges, not the total bill, so the £1,723 is an illustration for typical consumption rather than a maximum; and the rates vary by region and by payment method, with prepayment and standard credit differing from direct debit. Rates change every quarter, so any payback figure quoted without the cap period attached will go stale within three months.

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17. very strong RN-6BGBFC

    Scottish Government (gov.scot)

    SCOTLAND, and this is where an England-based note goes wrong. A completion certificate confirms the building was constructed, demolished or converted in accordance with the warrant and the building regulations, and it is submitted by the relevant person, usually the owner or developer, not issued unprompted by the authority. It is an offence to submit a completion certificate known to be false, and an offence to occupy a new building, a conversion or an extension unless the completion certificate has been ACCEPTED by the verifier. Temporary occupation or use can be permitted under section 21 of the Act on application to the verifier, who takes account of mitigation such as means of escape in a partially completed building. The occupation bar does not apply to alterations, but a completion certificate for alterations must still be submitted before the warrant expires. Where an approved certifier of construction is involved, the relevant person must still certify completion. Section 9 notes that a local authority may operate a letter of comfort scheme for older unauthorised works, Scotland's practical counterpart to England's regularisation certificate.

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18. very strong RN-LR1JGD

    Scottish Government (gov.scot)

    SCOTLAND. Published 25 March 2026, ISBN 9781806439690, in force from 1 April 2026, and it carries the revised table of fees applicable to all building warrant applications, so it is the correct source for what a Scottish building warrant costs. It explains the procedures underpinning the Scottish building standards system as set out in the Building (Procedure) (Scotland) Regulations 2004 and the Building (Scotland) Act 2003. Scotland charges a building warrant fee scaled to the estimated value of the work, a structure with no direct England parallel now that England's building control charges are set locally by each authority or by a private registered building control approver.

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19. very strong RN-49EIVV

    Scottish Government (gov.scot)

    The Scottish planning fee schedule set by Planning Circular 1/2026, published 25 March 2026, applying the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2026. Householder work (categories 2 and 3), meaning applications to enlarge, improve or alter an existing dwellinghouse or to carry out ancillary works within its curtilage, carries a flat fee of £371, rising to a maximum of £742 where more than one dwelling is involved. New dwellinghouses (category 1) are charged in bands: £742 per dwelling for each of the first 10, £557 per dwelling for the 11th to 49th, and £310 per dwelling above 49, subject to an overall maximum of £185,524. Category 20, change of use of a building to one or more separate dwellinghouses, is priced identically to new build with the same cap. Scottish fees are uprated annually for inflation, so check the year of the circular before quoting.

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20. very strong RN-VR0Q0L

    Scottish Government (gov.scot)

    SCOTLAND, and this contradicts the England position outright. New-style Scottish EPCs are introduced from 30 April 2028 under the Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Regulations 2025, replacing the 2008 regulations. Domestic EPCs will show separate ratings for heat retention, heating system and energy costs, non-domestic ones for energy performance, energy use and direct emissions, and certificates will be valid for 5 years rather than 10, so the familiar ten-year EPC validity will not hold in Scotland. Between 30 April 2028 and 30 April 2029 a sale or let may use either an old-style EPC and recommendations report or a new-style EPC and property report, but a property sold or let a second time inside that window must have the new-style pair; from 30 April 2029 only new-style certificates are valid. Assessors can issue only new-style EPCs from 30 April 2028. The same one-year grace period applies to Scotland's roughly 30,000 short-term lets. Dates remain subject to Scottish Parliament approval.

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21. very strong RN-TVXPNF

    Scottish Government Building Standards Division (blogs.gov.scot)

    The Scottish building warrant fee uplift from 1 April 2026 under the Building (Fees) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2026, the final year of the three-year fee model that began on 1 April 2024. Average increase around 8%. Named figures: the lowest starting fee rises from £210 to £215, conversions or demolition from £210 to £215, a late demolition-only warrant application from £300 to £350, and a completion certificate for demolition or conversion carried out without a warrant from £500 to £600. Three fixed fees are held at £150: amendments to a warrant where the value of work is under £5,000, demolition-only applications, and extensions to the period of a warrant. Certification discounts on works over £100,000 are 10% for a Certificate of Design and 3% for a Certificate of Construction, with the fixed discounts on works up to £100,000 rising in line with the cumulative uplift. The full fee table is published in the Building Standards Procedural Handbook from 25 March 2026 rather than in this post, so use this for the direction and the named figures and the Handbook for the full scale.

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22. very strong RN-XEV6Y1

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The statutory right to be paid, or to pay, in instalments rather than in a lump sum, and the source of the 45 day threshold that decides whether a small domestic job carries it. s.109(1) entitles a party to a construction contract to payment by instalments, stage payments or other periodic payments for any work under the contract, unless s.109(1)(a) the contract specifies that the duration of the work is to be less than 45 days, or s.109(1)(b) the parties agree that the duration is estimated to be less than 45 days. So a job programmed at under 45 days carries no statutory right to stage payments at all. s.109(2) leaves the parties free to agree the amounts of the payments and the intervals or circumstances in which they become due, and s.109(3) provides that in the absence of such agreement the relevant provisions of the Scheme for Construction Contracts apply, supplying a default payment regime. Note that Part II of the Act does not apply to a contract with a residential occupier under section 106, so this is the framework for contractor and subcontractor payment rather than for a homeowner's own contract.

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23. very strong RN-2T3ONB

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The section that requires every construction contract to say when money becomes due and when it must actually be paid. s.110(1)(a) requires the contract to provide an adequate mechanism for determining what payments become due under the contract and when, and s.110(1)(b) requires a final date for payment in relation to any sum which becomes due. The parties are free to agree the length of time between the due date and the final date for payment, so the Act fixes the structure but not the period. Two anti-avoidance limbs were inserted by the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009, in force October 2011 in England and Wales and November 2011 in Scotland: s.110(1A) provides that the mechanism is not adequate where payment is made conditional on the performance of obligations under another contract or on a decision by any person as to whether obligations under another contract have been performed, and s.110(1D) provides that the requirement is not satisfied where the due date is determined by reference to the giving of a notice to the person to whom the payment is due. Read with sections 109 and 113.

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24. very strong RN-NF3ZYN

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The ban on pay-when-paid clauses, which is why a subcontractor's price should not carry the risk of the main contractor's client defaulting. s.113(1) makes a provision that makes payment under a construction contract conditional on the payer receiving payment from a third person ineffective, unless that third person, or any other person whose payment is directly or indirectly a condition of that third person's payment, is insolvent. The insolvency exception is defined separately for companies, partnerships and individuals, covering administration, receivership, winding-up orders, bankruptcy orders and sequestration under the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016. s.113(6) provides that where a provision is rendered ineffective the parties are free to agree other payment terms, and in the absence of such agreement the relevant provisions of the Scheme for Construction Contracts apply. Read with section 109 on stage payments; both sit in Part II, which excludes contracts with a residential occupier under section 106.

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25. very strong RN-TUJTHX

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The rule that explains why building control charges differ from council to council and cannot be quoted as a single national figure. Regulation 6(3) sets the overriding objective: the authority must ensure that, taking one financial year with another, the chargeable income as nearly as possible equates to the chargeable costs. It is therefore a cost-recovery regime, not a tax and not a profit centre, and each authority sets its own scheme against its own costs. Regulation 6(2) requires the authority to review its charges annually to meet that objective, and regulation 6(9) defines the financial year as the 12 months beginning 1 April. Recovery is explicitly balanced across years rather than within any single year, so a deficit one year may lawfully be recovered the next. Read alongside regulation 3, which authorises a charging scheme, and regulation 4, which exempts building work required solely to meet the needs of a disabled person from any charge at all.

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26. very strong RN-8JP0PI

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The 100 square metre threshold that is widely misquoted in renovation writing. Regulation 42(1) provides that liability to CIL does not arise in respect of a development if, on completion, the gross internal area of new build on the relevant land will be less than 100 square metres. Regulation 42(2) is the limb usually left out: paragraph (1) does not apply where the development will comprise one or more dwellings, so creating even a single new dwelling makes the development chargeable regardless of how small it is. Regulation 42(3) defines new build for this purpose as that part of the development which will comprise new buildings and enlargements to existing buildings, so the measure is of added floor area, not of the finished building. In practice a domestic extension is more often taken out of charge by the separate residential extension exemption in regulation 42A, which carries no area limit, than by this threshold.

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27. very strong RN-O595GV

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The exemption that keeps most domestic extension and annexe work out of the Community Infrastructure Levy, and the reason a homeowner should never be quoted CIL on a straightforward extension without first checking it. Regulation 42A(1) exempts a person from liability to pay CIL where they own a material interest in a dwelling, referred to as the main dwelling, occupy that main dwelling as their sole or main residence, and the chargeable development is a residential annex or a residential extension. Regulation 42A(2) defines a residential annex as one wholly within the curtilage of the main dwelling which comprises one new dwelling. Regulation 42A(3) defines a residential extension as an enlargement to the main dwelling which does not comprise a new dwelling. No floor area threshold applies to this exemption, unlike the minor development exemption in regulation 42. Paragraphs (5) and (6) were omitted with effect from 31 December 2020. The exemption must be claimed before commencement, and an annexe carries a three year clawback if it is let or sold separately.

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28. very strong RN-D63Z6E

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The penalty that catches homeowners who win a CIL exemption and then start work without telling the council, which is the most common way a self-build or annexe exemption is lost. Regulation 83(1) allows the collecting authority to impose a surcharge equal to 20 per cent of the chargeable amount payable in respect of the development or £2,500, whichever is the lower amount, where development commences before the authority has received a valid commencement notice. Regulation 83(1A) deals with relevant developments, meaning those granted a relief or exemption: here the authority must impose a surcharge of 20 per cent of the notional chargeable amount or £2,500, whichever is lower. The distinction matters because on an exempt development the surcharge is calculated on the notional charge that would have been payable, and the imposition is mandatory rather than discretionary. Read with regulation 67 on commencement notices and regulations 42 and 42A on the exemptions themselves.

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29. very strong RN-BWZN7C

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The Northern Ireland planning fee scale, the devolved equivalent of the England and Scotland schedules and the hardest of the four to find. Category 4, extensions, improvements or alterations to a dwellinghouse, including ancillary buildings within the curtilage and boundary structures such as gates and fences, is £347 for each dwelling. Category 3, the erection of dwellinghouses: £515 for a single dwellinghouse on a reserved matters application and £1,035 on a full application; £1,215 for two dwellings then £434 for each additional dwelling up to 50; above 50 dwellings £22,047 plus £129 for each in excess of 50, subject to a maximum of £323,133. Note that these are the figures in the 2015 Regulations as they stand on this page and that the scale has been amended repeatedly, most recently by the Planning (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2025, so check the amending instrument before quoting a current figure.

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30. very strong RN-5M0XLI

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk)

    The instrument that explains why there is no national home repair grant and why help varies entirely by council. Article 3 gives local housing authorities a broad power of local housing assistance, allowing them to provide help for repair, improvement and adaptation in any form they choose: grant, loan, equity release, materials or labour. Article 4 sets the supplementary provisions on how assistance is provided, and article 6 requires the authority to provide information and evidence about its scheme, which is the basis of the published local policy every council must adopt before it can give any assistance. Articles 7 and 8 cover contributions towards expenditure and their recovery, the legal route for repayable or charge-secured help. Schedule 3 amends the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996 so that sections 4 to 18 and 25 to 28 cease to have effect, abolishing the old mandatory renovation grant regime; article 15 makes the consequential repeals. The result is a wholly discretionary framework, so any figure for council help is local, not national. Disabled Facilities Grants survive separately and remain mandatory.

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31. very strong RN-3APQ6X

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), Acts of the Scottish Parliament

    SCOTLAND, and there is no England equivalent: England relies on leases and service charges where Scotland legislates for flat ownership directly. Sections 1 to 3 fix tenement boundaries and pertinents by default, so ownership of the roof, close and solum is settled by statute rather than by title alone. Section 4 applies the Tenement Management Scheme in Schedule 1 wherever the title deeds are silent, and section 4A lets a local authority pay a share of scheme costs. Sections 7 to 10 abolish the common law of common interest for tenements and replace it with a statutory duty at section 8 to maintain any part providing support or shelter, a prohibition at section 9 on interfering with support or shelter, and a cost recovery right at section 10. Sections 11 to 15 set when liability for repair costs arises, bind successors at section 12, allow a Notice of Potential Liability for Costs at section 13 and give a former owner a recovery right at section 14. Sections 5 and 6 route disputes to the sheriff.

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32. very strong RN-OLMVVL

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), Acts of the Scottish Parliament

    SCOTLAND. The default rules for organising and paying for common repairs in a Scottish tenement, in force since 28 November 2004. Rule 1.2 defines scheme property and rule 1.4 a scheme decision; maintenance expressly includes repairs, replacement, the installation of insulation, cleaning, painting, routine works and gardening, but not demolition, alteration or improvement unless reasonably incidental. Rule 2.2 allocates one vote per flat and rule 2.5 makes a scheme decision by simple majority of all votes allocated, so a single objecting owner cannot block a repair. Rule 2.6 requires at least 48 hours notice of a meeting, and rule 2.10 lets any owner who did not vote in favour and who would bear not less than 75 per cent of the costs annul the decision, within 21 days of a meeting they attended. Rule 4.1 lists the recoverable scheme costs including common insurance and door entry systems. Rule 4.2 shares maintenance costs equally among the flats unless the largest flat's floor area is more than one and a half times the smallest, in which case liability is apportioned by floor area; rule 4.3 applies that same floor-area test to the roof over the close.

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33. very strong RN-4UGLYK

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), Northern Ireland Statutory Rules

    NORTHERN IRELAND, and this is the fourth different householder planning fee in the UK. Made 11 March 2025 by the Department for Infrastructure under sections 223 and 247 of the Planning Act (Northern Ireland) 2011, coming into operation 1 April 2025. Category 4 charges £347 for each dwelling for the extension, improvement or alteration of an existing dwellinghouse, and Northern Ireland folds into that SAME category the erection of a building or other operations within the curtilage for ancillary purposes and the erection of gates, fences, walls or other means of enclosure, which Scotland and Wales charge separately. So the four nations stand at England £548, Wales £585, Scotland £371 and Northern Ireland £347. An outline application for a single dwellinghouse is £515 and a full application £1,035. Reduced fees and refunds rise from £76 to £78, advertisement consent from £226 to £231, and EIA development from £12,664 to £12,924.

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34. very strong RN-DBLVHY

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), Scottish Statutory Instruments

    SCOTLAND. The instrument behind Scotland's EPC reform, replacing the Energy Performance of Buildings (Scotland) Regulations 2008 and underpinning the new-style certificate introduced from 30 April 2028 with a 5 year validity instead of 10. Regulation 1 sets citation, commencement and extent, regulation 2 interpretation, and the following regulations the duties to obtain and produce certificates. Cite this rather than the England and Wales Energy Performance of Buildings (England and Wales) Regulations 2012 for any Scottish property.

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35. very strong RN-GZLT9O

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), Scottish Statutory Instruments

    SCOTLAND, and these figures contradict the England fees. Made 3 February 2026 and in force from 1 April 2026, amending SSI 2022/50. Category 2 of Table 1 sets the householder planning fee for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of an existing dwelling at £371 for one dwelling and £742 for two or more, against England's £548 householder fee from the same date. Category 3 charges £371 for an outbuilding or other operation within the curtilage of an existing dwellinghouse ancillary to its enjoyment, and £371 for gates, fences, walls or other means of enclosure along a curtilage boundary. Regulation 3 raises the flat fee from £357 to £371, regulation 4 raises the discretionary fees from £238 to £247 and from £119 to £124, and paragraph 9(1) from £714 to £742. New dwellings are £742 each for the first 10, then £557, then £310 above 49, capped at £185,524.

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36. very strong RN-6IHI71

    The National Archives (legislation.gov.uk), Scottish Statutory Instruments

    SCOTLAND. The parent instrument for Scottish planning application fees, amended annually and most recently by SSI 2026/49 in force 1 April 2026. Part 2 covers payment of fees at regulation 3 and the planning authority's discretion to charge at regulation 4, with regulation 5 allowing fees to be waived or reduced and regulation 6 imposing a surcharge on retrospective applications, a Scottish feature England does not mirror. Part 3 lists the cases where no fee is payable, including regulation 7 for means of access for disabled persons and regulation 8 where permitted development rights have been restricted, so a Scottish householder who needs consent only because an Article 4 style restriction applies pays nothing. Schedule 1 carries the calculation rules and Part 3 of that schedule the tables of fees.

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37. very strong RN-MZWVT0

    Valuation Office Agency, HMRC (GOV.UK)

    Published 22 January 2016 and last updated 15 June 2026, applying to England and Wales, this is the authority that corrects two common claims. First, on rebanding after an improvement: bands are based on the open market price on 1 April 1991 in England and 1 April 2003 in Wales, and if a property has increased in size since it was first assessed it may move to a higher band when it is next sold, so an extension does not trigger an immediate rebanding of the current owner. Second, on Council Tax during works: if the property is occupied the band will not be deleted even if significant repair or renovation works are underway, and only where the property is unoccupied and either beyond repair or undergoing major works making it uninhabitable can the owner apply to have the band removed. Reproduces the full band tables: England Band A up to 40,000 pounds through Band H over 320,000 pounds; Wales Band A up to 44,000 pounds through Band I over 424,000 pounds, Wales having nine bands to England's eight. Assessments are based on size, layout, character, location, change of use and the 1991 or 2003 value, and the Valuation Office does not use property price indexes.

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38. very strong RN-UQJZBJ

    Welsh Government (gov.wales)

    WALES. Published 3 April 2017 and not updated since, a 3 MB PDF to be read with the September 2013 amendment slip. This is the Welsh Part P, and it is not the same document as England's 2013 edition. Wales did not follow England in narrowing the definition of a special location, so the scope of notifiable domestic electrical work is wider in Wales. Cite this rather than the England Approved Document P for any Welsh rewire, kitchen or bathroom job.

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39. very strong RN-MQY230

    Welsh Government (gov.wales)

    WALES, and this is a hard contradiction with England. The Welsh Approved Document P states that notifiable jobs include new circuits back to the consumer unit AND extensions to circuits in KITCHENS and special locations such as bathrooms, and that consumer unit replacements are notifiable. England's Approved Document P 2013 edition defines a special location at regulation 12(9) as only the zone around a bath tap or shower head, extending 2.25 metres vertically and 0.6 metres horizontally from a bath tub or shower tray, or 1.2 metres from a shower head where there is none, plus a room containing a swimming pool or sauna heater, so a kitchen is NOT a special location in England and extending a kitchen circuit there is not notifiable. In Wales it is. The Welsh document also confirms replacement, repair and maintenance work is generally not notifiable even in a kitchen or special location, that in large bathrooms the special location is bounded by the walls of the bathroom, and that conservatories, attached garages, detached garages and sheds are not special locations, so work there is notifiable only if it involves a new circuit.

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40. very strong RN-Y1W23U

    Welsh Government (gov.wales)

    WALES, and the householder figure contradicts both England and Scotland. In force from 1 December 2025, rounded to the nearest pound. Category 6, the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of existing dwellinghouses, is £585 where the application relates to one dwellinghouse and £820 for two or more, against England's £548 from 1 April 2026 and Scotland's £371. Category 7(a), operations including the erection of a building within the curtilage of an existing dwellinghouse for ancillary purposes, or gates, fences, walls or other means of enclosure along a curtilage boundary, is £283 in each case. Category 1 charges £667 for each dwellinghouse for new dwellings, with a £16,675 base fee band above 25 dwellinghouses and a maximum of £203,380. A non-material amendment under section 96A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 costs £123 for a householder application and £242 otherwise. Site visits are charged at £493 or £166 per visit depending on category.

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