The building permit is the approval people worry about least and get stuck on most. Planning feels adversarial, so it gets attention. The building permit feels administrative — until a surveyor comes back with a list, and the list takes six weeks to clear because three consultants have to re-agree with each other.
Our aim is a set that gets assessed once.
This is worth being precise about, because conflating the two permits is the most expensive misunderstanding in Victorian residential construction.
Not every project needs a planning permit. Every project involving building work needs a building permit. Where both apply, planning resolves first.
The thing that stalls permits: not a missing drawing — contradiction. The architectural set says one window size, the energy report assumed another, the engineer sized a beam for a third. Each document is individually fine. Together they don't describe a building that can exist.
A building permit set is really four documents that have to agree: the architectural drawings, the structural engineering, the energy report, and — where relevant — the endorsed planning drawings. Add a land surveyor's feature and level survey underneath all of it.
Keeping those aligned as the design settles is unglamorous, and it is most of what you're paying for. It's also why we sequence consultants deliberately rather than engaging everyone at once and paying twice when the design moves.
Where a planning permit exists, the permit set must reflect the endorsed drawings. Quietly "improving" the design between planning approval and permit documentation is a well-travelled route to an amended planning application and several lost months.
If a change is genuinely needed, it's better to know at documentation than to discover it when the surveyor compares your set to the endorsement.
Related: our building permit service, working drawings (the same set, from the builder's side), and town planning drawings (the stage before).
A registered building surveyor — either private or from your council's building department. Not the planning department, and not council's planners. This is a different assessor, applying a different rulebook, to the planning permit.
The National Construction Code and the Victorian building regulations. The question is compliance and safety: structure, fire, health and amenity, energy efficiency, access, and the siting requirements. It is not a design review — a surveyor will not comment on whether the building is attractive.
Where a proposal doesn't meet certain siting requirements in the building regulations — things like setbacks, site coverage, overshadowing of adjoining open space or overlooking — the building surveyor can't simply approve it. Council's building department has to consider it and give consent.
It is a common, manageable step, but it takes time. Knowing early whether you need it is the difference between a planned detour and a surprise.
Only if your project triggers one. Many don't. Where a planning permit is required, it must be resolved first, and the endorsed planning drawings become the basis of the permit documentation — because the building permit set has to be consistent with what council approved.
The documentation is the long pole, not the assessment. Building permit documentation typically runs 6–12 weeks depending on scale and consultant coordination. Assessment by the surveyor follows once the set and the supporting reports are complete and consistent.
Most often, documents that disagree with each other — the architectural set, the engineering and the energy report describing three slightly different buildings. Also: missing energy report, missing engineering, protection work matters where you're building near a neighbour's structure, or siting issues that need report and consent nobody anticipated.
Each stage answers a different question, for a different assessor.
The construction set your builder prices and builds from.
View service → — DraftingThe set council assesses against the planning scheme and ResCode.
View service → — DraftingDrafting that has to meet an existing building honestly.
View service → — DraftingMulti-dwelling work where Clause 55 decides the yield.
View service → — DraftingFabrication drawings — detailed in-house, not outsourced.
View service → — OverviewThe full picture: permits, drawing sets, consultants, timeframes and fees.
Back to drafting →Site address, sketch, brief, or just a question — we'll respond within one business day.