Can unauthorised works be approved after the event?
Often, if they can be shown to comply. BCA's guidance is that an owner who wishes to keep unauthorised works should engage a Qualified Person to submit plans to the Commissioner of Building Control for approval, and obtain other approvals such as URA's. Section 21 of the Building Control Act allows the Commissioner to impose a pecuniary penalty of up to 10 times the plan approval fees; once accepted, the covered works are treated as not having contravened section 20. Works that cannot meet the requirements must be modified or removed.
From the RRD Field Guide, checked against the sources cited in Unauthorised Building Works in Singapore: Penalties, Detection and How to Regularise. General information, not advice for your project.
The fuller picture
Unauthorised building works are works carried out without a required approval from BCA (plans or structural permit), SCDF (fire safety works) or URA (planning or conservation permission). They can attract fines of up to S$200,000 under each regime. To keep them, the owner appoints a Qualified Person to survey and assess the works and seek retrospective approval; otherwise they must be rectified or removed.
More questions on this topic
- What counts as unauthorised building works in Singapore?
- I bought the property with the unauthorised works already there. Am I responsible?
- Will my lawyer's legal requisition reveal unauthorised works?
- How are unauthorised works usually discovered?
- What does regularisation cost?
- Is a mezzanine in a warehouse unit a building work?
- Does the tenant or the landlord bear liability for a tenant's unauthorised works?