Building Permits and Approval of Architect Drawings
Getting paperwork right for Architectural Drawings approval from State Housing Company
By law, a building permit is required before anyone can build a house/building in Ghana. I came across a fantastic article by Emmanuel Mate-Kole, Esq. and Kow Essuman, Esq.
[Emmanuel is a lawyer and a leading associate in the Construction, Infrastructure and Transportation practice group at Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa and Ankomah.
Kow is a barrister; qualified to practise law in England and Wales, New York and Ghana. He is an associate in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution practice group with Bentsi-Enchill, Letsa and Ankomah. He is also a Global Shaper (Accra Hub) of the World Economic Forum, explaining most of what one needs to know about Building Permits in Ghana.]
I suggest you head over to Kow Essuman's Blog and have a good read. Other Ghanaian sites also have some well written information on Building Permits in Ghana. For example Ghana Home Blog has a piece on “How to get a Building Permit in Ghana in record time”
Anyway the essence of a Building Permit to basically to cover your back. It is for your own benefit. The last thing you want is for all the money you have invested in you building to go down in a pile of rubble because you failed to follow the sensible route as required by you.
The architect who designed my building went to the AMA Offices in Labadi in an attempt to set the ball rolling for a Building Permit to be issued to me. Under normal circumstances, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly [aka AMA] Offices in Labadi would have proceeded to check everything and providing all was in order then issue a building permit. However the building I am planning of building is in Nyaniba Estates. Nyaniba Estates is an Estate that was built in the Nkrumah regime by the, at that time, State Housing Corporation.
Hence, I would need them to approve the architectural drawings before the Accra Metropolitan Assembly [aka AMA] Office in Labadi can provide me with a Building Permit. The State Housing Corporation has now been renamed to State Housing Company and still situated next to the State Transport Corporation when you are heading towards Abossey Okine. With four detailed copies of the architectural drawings, I went over to SHC to get things started. I was informed by a lady in Customer services that I needed to present the below listed to complete my application for my drawings to be approved.
1. An application letter [typed] requesting for PLOT 22 architectural drawings to be approved
2. A fee of GHC500.00
3. A photocopy of Indenture
4. A photocopy of Lease Documents
5. A photocopy of Letters Of Administration
6. A photocopy of my Mothers death certificate.
I went back into town and got all my photocopying done at Busy Internet. Just as a word of warning. At the time of writing this, Busy Internet is undergoing some major renovations. They have set up temporary offices outside the main building. Due to the lack of space, the photocopying section can get very crowded.
With everything in order, I went back to SHC a presented my application. Last week Friday, I got a call informing me that my application had been approved and that I needed to GHC14,000.00. I am not too sure about this payment required. I was not in the a favourable environment to ask questions, so I guess I will need to get confirmation on this when i return to the SHC offices on Tuesday 22nd September.
