How delays work
Today we had notification of the reception of our application for a building permit. Or rather, a “NOTIFICATION DU DELAI D’INSTRUCTION” (their caps)… In other words, we’ve waited two months to tell you you’ll have to wait two months.
It’s like this: the official allowable delay for a permit de construire is two months after the receipt of the application—if there’s no word after that time, the application is deemed successful and you can start work. The problem is, the paper pushers have a clever trick to knock your schedule on its ear.
Just before the expiry of the two months after our application, we received a letter explaining that they didn’t have enough information regarding our plans for waste management, and needed a study of the soil type etc. We passed it all on to the maître d’oeuvre who blew a gasket—he’d noted in the application that since we have clay soil, we’re obliged to include a specific European standard sand filtration system with our septic tank. In other words, we had already accepted the need to follow the most stringent course of action.
They (naturally) apologised profusely and accepted the application. Dated from their receipt of the information they already had (and the blast from the m.d’o.). So our new date d’instruction is May 4…
29 March, 2005 — 15h20 (Paris) | administration
