Permit applications complete before the statutory clock starts
A municipal planning department where the legal response period began on receipt, whether or not the application was complete.
The situation
A municipal planning department. Its legal response period starts on receipt of an application, whether or not that application is complete, which means an incomplete application consumes the department’s own deadline.
The statutory clock ran while officers were still asking for missing plans. Completeness was assessed by whoever opened the application first, and refusals for incompleteness generated appeals the department had to defend.
The rule Ceertia applies
Every application must contain everything the statute requires for its permit type.
How it runs
The case arrives from whoever sends it, with the application forms, site plans, technical reports, ownership evidence, impact assessments and fee receipts. Anything missing is flagged on receipt.
Each rule returns a verdict with its evidence: what Ceertia saw, where, and why it concluded. Every verdict is stored with its rule version, source excerpt and timestamp. A use case per permit type, declaring what the statute requires. Completeness is established the day the application lands, and the applicant receives a specific request rather than a general refusal.
Your team keeps the decision, on sourced evidence, with a full audit log.
What changes in the work
- The statutory clock ran while officers were still asking for missing plans.
- Completeness was assessed by whoever opened the application first.
- Refusals for incompleteness generated appeals the department had to defend.
- Completeness is established on the day of receipt, consistently.
- The applicant is told exactly what is missing immediately.
- Each decision cites the rule and the evidence behind it.
Your team keeps the decision, on sourced evidence, with a full audit log.
A public procurement office where every tender opened with a long administrative compliance check before technical evaluation could begin.
Read the case GovernmentBenefit decisions that survive an appealA social benefits agency whose refusals were regularly appealed, and whose cases could not always show what had been checked.
Read the case