New Dwelling Completions Q1 2018

The Building Control Management System (BCMS) was introduced with effect from 1 March 2014 to facilitate building control authorities, building owners, builders and construction professionals in discharging their responsibilities under the Building Control Act 1990, as amended. The building control process includes a requirement, in certain circumstances, to lodge a statutory Certificate of Compliance on Completion (CCC) in respect of buildings, including dwellings. While this represents another useful source of data on residential completions, it also has a number of limitations in this regard.

Firstly, CCCs apply only to works commenced on or after 1 March 2014 so would not apply to homes completed at a current date which were subject to a commencement notice submitted prior to 1 March 2014. Secondly, self-build houses were given the facility to opt out of the statutory CCC process on and from 1st September 2015, so not all single homes constructed will appear in these returns.1

Prior to the BCMS becoming operational, the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government carried out surveys of Building Control Authorities (BCA) in respect of the submission of Commencement Notices (CN). Figure 5.1 shows data from the BCAs for 2011 to February 2014 and from March 2014 onwards, data relating to Commencement Notices submitted onto the BCMS are displayed. It shows an increase of 33% in Commencement Notices in 2017 over 2016. All dwellings constructed in Ireland are required to submit a Commencement Notice and start work within 21 days. In a normally functioning housing market (i.e. outside of periods of substantial negative price shocks) one would expect that the ratio of commencements to completions would average close to 100% making a suitable allowance for the lag between the two phases.