The occupancy permit for a house is the step that is talked about least and that creates the most paperwork for the owner of a finished house if it has not been prepared during construction. The building permit allows building; the occupancy permit allows living. Without it the building is not officially complete, which means trouble with the insurer, the bank and a future sale.

This article walks through six steps of how the occupancy permit works for a new detached house in Estonia, which documents and measurements it requires, and what Happy Home does for a turnkey client. The legal basis is the Building Code, and the application is filed in the building register.

Occupancy permit or notice of use: which one you need

The rule is simple and mirrors the building permit rule. If the building needed a building permit, it needs an occupancy permit, also called a permit for use, before it is used. If a building notice was enough, a notice of use is filed on completion. A new detached house is practically always a building-permit building, so it needs an occupancy permit; the notice of use concerns outbuildings, a smaller sauna house, a shed or a carport.

The difference is in the procedure: for a notice of use the municipality has ten days to raise additional requirements, and if no answer comes, the building may be used. An occupancy permit is an administrative act the municipality issues after checking the documents and, where needed, inspecting the building, normally within 30 days. The building permit side is in our article on the building permit in Estonia.

Step 1: documents collected during construction

The basis of the occupancy permit application is the construction documentation, which cannot be created afterwards. The following documents must be created and kept during the build.

• The site log, recording the works, the weather, the checks and the participants.
• Covered-works certificates for work that cannot be seen later: foundation, insulation, waterproofing, pipework before it is covered.
• Minutes of site meetings and approvals of changes, where the design was deviated from.
• Declarations of conformity and performance for the materials and products.
• As-built drawings, that is the design as the house was actually built.

Happy Home’s project manager and site manager keep the site log and prepare the certificates as they go, so the file exists at the moment of handover. The stages where these documents are created are in our article on house construction stages.

Step 2: measurements and audits before the application

Before the application, measurements and audits have to be made that prove the house is safe and matches the design. The electrical installation gets a conformity audit, without which the installation may not be taken into use. The ventilation system gets an air-flow measurement and adjustment, and documentation is prepared for the heating system. If the house has a chimney or a heating appliance, fire safety documents are needed.

In addition, the energy label is prepared, which for a new building is a mandatory part of the occupancy permit, and an as-built survey is ordered that records the actual location and dimensions of the house in the register. What the energy label shows is explained in our article on the energy class A house.

Step 3: filing the application in the building register

The occupancy permit application is filed electronically in the building register, which the owner enters with an ID card, Mobile-ID or Smart-ID. The construction documentation, as-built drawings, measurements, audits, energy label and as-built survey are attached. The builder or the project manager may file the application under the owner’s authorisation, but the owner signs it and pays the state fee.

The amount of the fee is set in the State Fees Act. Review the application with the project manager before filing: a missing document means a round of completion, and the procedure clock restarts.

Step 4: the procedure and the inspection

The municipality checks whether the building matches the building permit and the design and whether the required documents exist. The deadline of the procedure is normally 30 days; if the application needs completing, the time counts from when the deficiencies are remedied. The municipality may inspect the site before granting the permit and, where needed, involves other authorities, for example the Rescue Board on fire safety questions.

The most common causes of delay are deviations from the design that were not approved, a missing electrical audit or ventilation measurement report, an unfiled energy label and an unpaid state fee. All four are preventable when the file is built up during construction and reviewed before filing.

Step 5: permit in hand: insurance, the bank and the registers

Once the occupancy permit is issued, the building is recorded in the building register as in use. That is the moment to arrange home insurance covering the finished building and to present the permit for use to the bank, if the house is loan collateral. The energy label stays in the register and is asked for at a sale.

Keep the occupancy permit file as well: it is the passport of the house, and an insurer, a buyer or a renovator will ask for it later. We hand the client the complete documentation at handover.

Step 6: outbuildings and later changes

The same logic applies to outbuildings. A sauna house, garage or carport built under a building notice needs a notice of use on completion; a larger garage built under a building permit needs an occupancy permit. The simplest is to file the outbuilding documents together with the house, if they were completed at the same time.

If you later want to extend the house, change the roof or add an outbuilding, the cycle starts again: building permit or building notice, construction, and occupancy permit or notice of use. The register must match reality, otherwise the same problems arise at a sale or with insurance that the first occupancy permit solved.

What Happy Home does at this step

This is part of our turnkey service. The project manager and site manager collect the documents during construction, order the measurements and audits, prepare the as-built drawings and assemble the application by handover; the client signs it as the owner and pays the state fee. Everything inside our price is on the construction info page.

For planning purposes, the building permit takes two to three months in practice and construction about 22 weeks, and the occupancy permit file is built up over that whole period rather than at the end.

Summary

The occupancy permit file is not paperwork that starts after completion but a by-product of the build, which is why turnkey construction is the calmer route for a first-time builder.

If you would like that whole file to be the builder’s concern, send us the plot documents through the contact page. We start with the plot and finish with the occupancy permit.