Why a solicitor asks for one after a re-roof
A completion certificate is the building control body's record that work it inspected met the Building Regulations. When you sell, the buyer's solicitor goes through the paperwork for changes made to the house, and a new roof draws a question. If the work needed approval and nothing was signed off, the gap can hold up a sale.
First settle whether a certificate should exist at all. Under the Planning Portal's test, you normally skip an application while under 25 per cent of the total building envelope and under 50 per cent of the roof is touched. Fitting a covering that is 15 per cent or more above the old weight, or one that would perform quite differently in a fire, does need approval.
A small repair or a patch of new tiles may therefore have no certificate behind it, and that is not a defect. Stripping and re-covering a whole slope is another matter, and so is fitting something heavier. Your copy of the quote, or the roofer, should say which route was taken.
Dover District Council includes replacing a roof covering, even a like for like swap, among the work needing approval, so at a Dover address a certificate is more likely to exist.
Who holds the certificate for your address
Building control is organised differently across East Kent, so the answer depends on where the house stands. Ask the body named for your council.
- Thanet: the district council's own building control team, on 01843 577522.
- Canterbury City Council and Swale Borough Council: STG Building Control Partnership, on 01634 331133.
- Dover: Dover District Council has its own team, and its building control pages are on dover.gov.uk.
- Folkestone & Hythe: the district council's own service, on 01303 853538.
- Ashford: Ashford Borough Council's building control.
Give the address, the approximate date of the work and the name on the invoice. If the job went through a private route, the certificate comes from the registered building control approver that handled it, so ask your roofer which firm that was. Private building control existed before registration of approvers began on 6 April 2024, so an older job can sit on either side of that date.
If a register turns up nothing, tell your solicitor in plain terms and ask what they need. Do not guess at a date or a provider, because a wrong guess sends the search to the wrong office. A message that names the address, the roofer and the rough date gets the quickest answer.
Thanet's register and the £54 copy
Thanet District Council holds a building control register. Its charge for a copy of a certificate taken from that register is £54 including VAT per copy. The team can be reached on 01843 577522, or by post at Building Control, Council Offices, PO Box 9, Cecil Street, Margate, CT9 1XZ.
Gather these before you ask, so the search is quick:
- The full address, with the postcode.
- The month and year the roof was done, as near as you can say.
- The name of the roofer or company on the invoice.
- Any reference number from a letter or email.
- A note of whether a loft conversion or a chimney was part of the work.
The £54 pays for a copy of a certificate that exists. Whether a re-roof needed approval at all is a separate question, and Thanet itself points people to the Planning Portal's interactive house for that.
Ask early if a sale date is already fixed, and say in your message that the certificate is wanted for the sale, so the team knows why you are asking.
If no certificate exists
There are three possible findings. The work needed no approval, so there is nothing to find. The work needed approval and was signed off, so a copy can be supplied. Or the work needed approval and was never applied for, which is a problem to take to the building control body and your solicitor before a buyer finds it.
Do not pay anyone to produce a document that was never issued. A certificate comes from the body that inspected the work and from nobody else, so a copy supplied by any other firm should be treated with caution.
If you are commissioning a re-roof now, ask at the start how building control will be handled for your address and who applies. Who notifies building control gives the usual answer, and roof questions when buying a house covers the other end of a sale.
For a bigger project, the guide to Building Regulations for roof work goes through what triggers approval. A re-roof with Castle Roofing Margate begins with a survey, and building control is raised then, before any price is written.
