Due to the huge delay in town planning information getting to owners trying to sell their homes, the Brussels town planning councillor Geoffroy Coomans de Brachène said he was going to reorganise the town planning services and take on 4 extra full-time staff, to try and catch up. He has asked regional authorities for financial support due to the increased cost. The legal delay for passing on this type of document is 30 days. However, Brussels homeowners can wait up to 6 months, which can lead to sales falling through, L’Echo has said. This new obligation comes from a modification to the Brussels Development Code (COBAT), dated the 3rd of April 2014. The region has decided individuals, and not notaries, have to provide a document that includes, among other things, the last legal permit for the property and heritage protection measures.
“In 2014, we received 2,800 town planning information requests, to which you have to add 300 confirmation requests. This is a more complex task, which currently involves looking into the history of the property concerned”, the councillor explains. “For every single request we get, we have to follow the same procedure as we do for confirmation requests (ask the archives for the file, analyse and interpret the plans). That means that the amount of properties we have to research goes from 300 a year to 3,900, meaning a 1,300% increase in the volume of work”.
To meet the region’s demand, the Brussels Ville town planning department has been totally reorganised and 4 full-time staff have been taken on. Two of them have already started. The other two should start later this month.
(Source: Belga)
