Mairie refused to issue certificate of conformity for house build

we asked the mairie to issue us with a certificate of conformity on our house and he refused saying that the house does not conform as 2 of the windows we fitted were French doors and not windows and on another part of the house we did not install a second window in a room as we thought it was adequate with 1, he told us to apply for retrospective planning (minor changes) which we did and at the end of that process we were told from planning to submit a full new planning application which we did and at the end of that process we were told the house as it stood would not be approved as the roof and windows were not acceptable so would need changing, so we are back at square one so my question is can the planning department simply refuse to consider what our architect considers minor changes? we simply do not know what to do now apart from changing the windows etc.
any advice much appreciated.

What does your architect say?
Has the planning law changed recently?
When we built our house, we were required to advise when the build was complete but there was no indication of a requirement to have the Mairie sign it off and neither did we do so.

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Hi and welcome to the site!
Please can you change your user name to show your full name as per our T&C - many thanks.
Catharine

Hello Jonno Jon :thinking:…

I’ll give some rough feedback… as it is not clear whether this is a newbuild or a renovation.

Presumably an architect drew up the plans which were originally approved.

If your project has not been built in line with the Planning Permit granted - then you should go back to the Project Manager/Architect/Builder and put the onus on their shoulders.

Who is the “we” ???

If you are using a French Registered Architect/Project Manager/Builder, you may well have recourse to the Insurance such folk have to have to cover their work…

It does not bode well, going against French Planning regulations/guides and permissions etc etc.

You could ask for a meeting at the Mairie with all the major players in attendance. Hopefully, you will be able to reach an understanding with the Mairie, on how to proceed - which I hope your “workforce” will stick to.

Once you give notification of completion, the Planning Authority has the right to inspect the property within a timescale, to see if the major work complies with the planning permission granted,

On occasion, an inspection can be made sooner, if there are fears that the Permit is being disregarded.

Sounds as if there were obvious discrepancies - easy to spot.

Hi Stella,

It’s a new build and the architect has been involved all the way through but as I explained we have come full circle.

The architect says he has never come across outright rejection of a minor change retrospectively.

Just a thought but maybe they are taking the view that putting in doors where the plans showed windows has invalidated the energy calculations?
France is very tight on carbon footprints of new builds because that is a big part of its strategy for meeting its targets.
That is a wild guess but it is all I can think of

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How come the New-Build varied from the Permit given - if the Architect was involved all the way through ?

It’s quite normal for the Architect to discuss with the Mairie/Planning Dept if a change to the Permit is being considered… and only after the necessary forms have been done and agreed should the change be undertaken.

This all sounds very iffy.

Please add your full real name before posting again. Thank you.

OK, will do.

Just a thought here, Stella, you often advise people to go to the Mairie, but many of our smaller Mairies have had their capacity to look into many matters taken away from them and you need to look higher for answers.
For us it is now the ComCom at Matour, which is miles away.
When we did the planning for our large renovations on our present house in 2009, Macon had already taken over from Trivy. It has now changed and all planning matters are now at Monceaux les Mines.

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Quite so, Jane.

I do suggest the Mairie, since they should always be able to advise where one should go for answers, if they cannot actually deal with the enquiry themselves.

With so many changes in the pipeline - offices being closed etc - the Mairie remains the first port of call to check on things.

It is amazing how many posts we have had where people have gone to their Mairies and have found a local bias against them, if not downright abuse of local power.
Fortunately we do not have that here.
We recently celebrated our ten year anniversary of living in France and we had two Mayors and one Adjoint celebrating with us.

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Like @Jane_Williamson our Maire is amazing and we have been here the whole time of his tenure in office coming up to 10 years.

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I have heard of bias claims - indeed I have sometimes been able to help folk locally. No bias at our Mairie but not all are as friendly.

Very often a lack of language skills by Joe Public can lead to misunderstandings.

Also, Joe Public often goes his own sweet way - being unaware of or sometimes ignoring French laws/regulations/whatever. If/when brought to book, Joe Public might well blame everyone else but never Joe Public… :roll_eyes:

As always, if folk have a genuine grievance against their Maire - they can discuss the problem at their local Sub-Prefecture or even the Prefecture.

Failing that, they can always talk with their local equivalent of an MP.

We had thirty six friends and neighbours plus assorted children with us and we had a wonderful time.

I’ve been through 3 Maires :rofl: and count them as my friends. Each and everyone of them has done his best to be fair-minded and correct.

The first one had no English, but got his grandson to teach him how to say “Steella, I need yor 'elp”. Knocked me down with a feather when he came out with that phrase …:hugs:
He had done 2 tours, but stood down from a third due to ill health.

Our second Maire was also straight as a die.
Sadly, he died before the next Election or he would have sailed through re-election.

Our current Maire has gone grey with the stress of his role, but he continues to battle on to ensure Joe Public (whatever nationality) gets a fair deal.

Not sure if he will stand again - it is very hard work trying to protect a small commune from being swallowed up by the big boys. Always battling against closure of our school, post office and even the Mairie. :zipper_mouth_face:

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