Planning/urbanisation/building consent

1.    Explain briefly what official permissions are needed in relation to buildings, and what authority grants them. Is permission needed for:

• The erection of a building
• The detailed design of a building
• The materials and method of construction
• The demolition of a building

Permission is needed for this, the municipality is the authority in charge.

2.    Are buildings of a certain age exempt from any of these requirements?

This is up to regulation of the municipalities.

3.    Is official permission needed for the use to which land or buildings are put?

No, but there is permission needed to change the use to which land or buildings are put.

4.    How does one discover whether the necessary permissions exist? Is it recorded in the land register, cadastre or some other register?

It is not recorded in the land register or cadastre. People have to contact the municipality.

5.    Are additional permissions needed in particular geographical areas? How does one discover whether a property is in such an area? Is it recorded in the land register, cadastre or some other register?

I am not sure what is meant by this question.

6.    Are there additional requirements for permission to alter or demolish certain buildings because of their age or architectural or historic value? How does one discover that such additional requirements exist? Is it recorded in the land register, cadastre or some other register?

In the Netherlands there is a special law on registering public-law restrictions. But the problem is that not all permissions are seen as public law restrictions. If something is regarded as a public law restriction then the following procedures are of interest.

In the Netherlands, not all data on government decisions that contain public-law restrictions is registered in the same way.

Firstly, a procedure exists whereby municipalities can record their own decisions in their own register. In the Netherlands, there are a total of 415 municipalities that record public-law restrictions in their registers as part of a joint National Facility (the ‘Landelijke Voorziening WKPB”) that records information on land registry plots. This work is undertaken under the WKPB Act (Wet kenbaarheid publiekrechtelijke beperkingen/Act on the Recognizability of Public Law Restrictions). The WKPB Act explicitly states that the responsibility for the correct link between restriction and land registry plot lies with the municipalities.

When cadastre issues information, the data on public-law restrictions from the WKPB national facility is added but is expressly not copied to the data in the cadastre. This prevents the registrar of the Kadaster from being held liable if the municipality has linked a decision to the incorrect land registry plot.

Secondly, there is also a procedure whereby non-municipal authorities can register those of their decisions that contain public-law restrictions directly in the Kadaster’s land register.