On 6 Jul 2004 15:20:28 -0700, a particular chimpanzee named
(Lobster) randomly hit the keyboard and
produced:

Come clean with what exactly? I'm hiding nothing. The point is I'd
been led to believe that I wasn't going to have to update the
properties to modern buildings standards, therefore I only included
things in the building notice that I thought needed mentioning, as
listed above. I'd have thought that if that was wrong, then the fact
that I also included "conversion of one property into two" might have
been a big red flag for Building Control to say "Oi!" at the outset
(or maybe after the first 3 or 4 visits?) if they disagreed with this.

It's not for Building Control to assess whether or not an applicant is
cogniscent of the implications of their proposals, both legally and
'morally'. For the applicant, ignorance is no defence.

Your gripe seems to be against the Building Control Officer, when you
should perhaps be directing more of your ire against the architect who
advised you wrongly that your proposals amounted to no more than
alterations when a quick read of the Regulations would have made it
clear that it was a change of use. Building Control is not here to
bail out those who have been given poor advice or no advice at all.

In my experience, there are those people who will listen to advice,
and there are those who crash on regardless despite the clear warnings
that what they are doing is wrong or could lead to problems. You'll
have to take a look at yourself to decide which type you are.
--
Hugo Nebula
"If no-one on the internet wants a piece of this, just how far from the pack have you strayed?"