9609 Planning Permissions

What do you mean by;-

"we had to have the whole of the renovation costs lodged with the geomotra in order for the permissions to be granted."?

Ie - did he just need to include estimates for all works in the submission, [which shouldn't be too much of a problem], or was there something else?

[quote=Shiv;90086]Apparently in order for the permissions to be granted we had to have the whole of the renovation costs lodged with the geomotra in order for the permissions to be granted. As we were planning to do the bulk of the work ourselves and over a period of time there was no way this was going to happen. we lost the cost of the permission fees and are back at suare one, with a house with no permissions and renovation quotes of 100,000 euros that e can't afford. Anyone think of a solution for us?[/quote]

I think we (or should I say the geometra who acted on our behalf) had to submit estimates of renovation costs.

Time wise ~ for all our planning permissions there was always a time scale included in the conditions - however, if for whatever reason the work was not completed within the specified time - can't remember how long it was, off the top of my head, 3 or 4 years I think - it was not a problem you just apply for an extension. Lots of Italians restore old houses bit by bit as they can afford to do so - so it is not an unusual situation for restoration to take years. Each comune/region may be different but hope this helps in your case.

Well it sounds as if you haven't been well served by your geometra. There are issues which you mention which are 'real', but the whole gist of your post is a bit strange.

For a restoration (assuming your building was originally a house), where the antcipated spend based on a current regional price book would exceed €50,000, or an application based on a piano di recupero if it was an agricultural or other building, the comune will require a computo metrico to be submitted with the applicaton. This should have been done, and a year ago it would have been enough. Now the comune requires a nominated builder to have agreed to do the work in the computo metrico (this latest requirement is to attempt to avoid work being done in the black).

However, I cannot imagine that the comune has chucked out your application - it should have just sat in their pending basket until all the information required had been submitted. I cannot either imagine the scenario where you would have paid the comune anything much (no more than €250 ish), because their fees for the permission are normally paid only after the permission has been approved. (If in fact the application is still in their pending basket you are at an advantage, because as far as I know some fairly onerous new thermal regulations will only be imposed on applications post-dating Nov 2007).

Thus I think that either you are misunderstanding the message from your geometra, or he isn't giving you truthful information.

As to doing much of the work yourself, this (from the comune point of view) doesn't affect the price of the work submitted with the applicaton: they raise their fee on a percentage basis of the building cost - it is the same in the UK for building reg approval. From the point of view of nowadays having to nominate a contractor to do the work - well, a good geometra will find you a workaround. From the point of view of doing some of the work yourself while a contractor is on site you will have to negotiate another workaround with the contractor (this is because health and safety regulations get invoked, chain of responsibilty stuff).

As regards your other query about having mended a roof, I wouldn't panic. Unless the local police have received a formal denuncia from perhaps a neighbour (a possibilty) they are unlikely to do anything. If they do take action it won't be too dire, so wait and see.

Thanks again guys for all the help, I feel somewhat calmer. Our house was a house at some point, not any other type of building, so it should be straightforward then? Originally our geomotra/builder was going to do much of the work that involved scaffolding, ie the new cordolla, roof and terrace, re-rendering etc so he was to get work from the job and was happy to assist us to do the rest of the work. In the UK my husband is a green oak timber framer so is more than capable of doing the roof anyway but we understand the health and safety issues and also we wanted to give some work to local tradespeople.

We were definately told that all our renovation costs had to be lodged in someone elses bank account (which sounds worrying) but it could be a misunderstanding and I will revisit this. With your advice I feel a litle happier to approach it again and I hope our permissions are in the communes 'in' tray. We certainly paid our fees, but I beleive the larger part of our wasted costs were for the engineers calculations and architects plans which to be honest were very basic. I will approach our geomotra again and may well re-visit this thread, but thanks again your information has given me some confidence

[quote=Shiv;90101]We were definately told that all our renovation costs had to be lodged in someone elses bank account (which sounds worrying) but it could be a misunderstanding and I will revisit this.[/quote]
I wonder if I'm the only one here who finds that a very... [I]odd[/I]... requirement. Is it someting you would ever considered agreeing to prior to work being done by builders in Britain?
[quote=Shiv;90101]With your advice I feel a litle happier to approach it again and I hope our permissions are in the communes 'in' tray. We certainly paid our fees, but I beleive the larger part of our wasted costs were for the engineers calculations and architects plans which to be honest were very basic. I will approach our geomotra again and may well re-visit this thread, but thanks again your information has given me some confidence[/quote]
Everything you say and the suggestion that 'someone' might have denouced you to the comune about the work you did on the roof makes me think that what you really ought to consider revisiting is your choice of geometra.

I very much understand how difficult it is to find a geometra you can trust, but you really [I]must[/I] be able to trust him completely, most definitely so if you don't actually live in Italy.

I would suggest you consider the points made by Charles Phillips very carefully.

Al

Shiv there are some big alarm bells going off here!

As others have said something seems not right and it looks as if its the Geometra where you need to start!

In our case our house was old but sound.We needed a roof that complied with the building regs and knew we would not be allowed to put up or work on scaffolding.We got a dia for this and the new wood windows that were needed.This work is now completed and during the time we have been carrying out non- dia work ourselves .No geometra needed no percentage fees to pay .Just us 2 and material ( keep all the reciepts for the tax people)

We will soon embark on phase 2 and need another dia as it involves building a new bathroom. Again we will be carrying on working in the house on plastering painting etc.

Its not correct for anyone to say that you cannot work on your house yourselves BUT there are clearly identifiable areas where you would need either planning permissiom the services of a Geometra or both.I'm sure that a more experienced person on the forum could list them for you.

Its very unlikely that your neighbours will want to get you into trouble but there are sometimes comune officials driving around who may take an interest so its best to be very careful and dont make any very noticeable changes overnight!!

You sound like youve got experience to draw on from the Uk and now its just a case of getting to understand what you can do in Italy!