New planning laws designed to improve the planning process came into force in France on 1 October 2007.

Introducing the new law, minister Jean-Louis Borloo declared that its purpose was to simplify planning procedures and to make the process shorter and more user-friendly, and welcomed it as helping to further the government’s objective of providing more housing nationally.

From now on, there will be three kinds of permis: permis de construire, permis d’aménager and permis de démolir. New buildings with an area of more than 20m² will require a permis de construire; the permis d’aménager is for major works of improvement and development and the permis de démolir will usually only be required for buildings of historical interest.

There are two application forms, one for a permis de constuire for a single dwelling and its annexes and another for all other permis de construire and permis d’aménager. Either application form may include a request for a permis de démolir, or permission to demolish, where this is associated with the development for which permission is sought. The forms are available, and can be completed, online: www.urbanisme.equipement.gouv.fr. In some cases it will be necessary to have the assistance of an architect, notably for buildings and extensions with an area exceeding 170m².

The law lists the documents which must accompany the application form. For a permis de construire these are:

A plan showing the location of the site

An overall plan of the buildings to be constructed or modified

A section plan of the ground and the building

A plan of the façade and the roof

A descriptive account of the land and the proposed development

A photograph enabling the development to be seen in its environmental and landscape context

The documents to be attached to an application for a permis d’aménager are slightly different.

In all cases, four copies of the forms must be submitted to the local mairie. In acknowledging receipt of the application, the mairie must state the date by which a decision can be expected. This is two months for a permis de construire for a single residence and three months for all other permis. The applicant must be informed by the mairie within one month of any missing documents (which can only be one of those specified in the legislation) or delay in the decision date and in this case the time limits will be extended. It is important therefore to make sure that the application is correct and all necessary documents have been attached if delay is to be avoided.

If nothing further is heard from the mairie within the time limits, permission is deemed to have been granted by default and this applies even if an outside agency such as the Architecte des bâtiments de France is involved: otherwise the decision of the mairie will be communicated by registered post. Conditions may be attached to the permission.

Either way, once the permission is granted, work must commence within two years and the mairie must be informed once the work is started. The permission must be posted on site throughout the course of the works and there is a right for third parties to object through the courts for two months following the original posting.

Once the work is completed, again the mairie must be notified, but the onus is now on the notifier to certify that the work has been completed in accordance with the planning permission. The mairie may come and inspect the work within the next three months if it considers it necessary, but it is not obliged to. If it does not do so, you can ask it to certify that conformity of the works with the planning permission was not disputed. As with the application for a permis, planning delays are avoided by a lack of response being interpreted as consent.

The same applies to the déclaration préalable which replaces the déclaration de travaux which was formerly required to authorise more minor works. If the mairie does not respond to the déclaration within one month, the applicant can assume that there is no objection and the work can proceed. There is an exhaustive list in the legislation of works for which a déclaration is necessary.

This is the theory of the new law, but it is early days and it will be interesting to see how it works out in practice over the next few months.