Incomplete posting of a building permit and time limits for appeals
A senator asked the Minister for Territorial Cohesion and Relations with Territorial Communities what recourse the municipality could take if a building permit is not properly posted.
In her reply, the Minister recalls the impact of failure to comply with the posting rules on the time limits for appealing against planning permission (C. urb. art. A. 424-15 et seq.).
The time limit for appealing against a planning permission runs from the first day of a continuous period of two months during which the documents mentioned in Article R. 424-15 are posted on the site (C. urb. R. 600-2). This article provides that the mention of the explicit or tacit permit or of the prior declaration must be posted on the site, in a manner visible from the outside, by the beneficiary, as soon as the order is notified or as soon as the tacit permit or the decision not to oppose the prior declaration is acquired and for the entire duration of the works.
Article A. 424-16 of the code stipulates that the notice board for the authorisation must indicate, in particular, the name, business name or company name of the beneficiary, the name of the architect who is the author of the architectural project, the date of issue, the number of the permit, the nature of the project and the surface area of the land as well as the address of the town hall where the file can be consulted.
According to administrative case law, the only obstacles to the triggering of the time limit for appeal appear to be omissions or inadequacies affecting the posting and of a substantial nature, i.e. which do not allow the third party to assess the importance and consistency of a project. Thus, with regard to the erroneous nature of the information relating to the surface area of the site on the billboard, the Council of State ruled in a judgment of 16 October 2019 stating that third parties had, in this case, been given the opportunity to assess the scope and consistency of the project and therefore the error in the information was not such as to prevent the time limit for appeal from being triggered (EC, 16 Oct. 2019, no. 419756). Consequently, without it being necessary for the municipality to intervene, it is in the interest of the beneficiary of the town planning authorisation, in order to guarantee the legal security of the latter, to proceed with a posting in compliance with the provisions of the Town Planning Code, failing which the administrative judge is likely to note the absence of triggering the deadlines for appeal for third parties.