Final certificate

Today, finally, finally, my building work was signed off. It conforms to building regulations and health and safety regulations. Getting this certificate has been a tedious and frustrating process and I've repeatedly had to chase Assent, the company responsible for signing it off. This morning my builder contacted me and said they were following up (I hadn't asked them to). 66 minutes later, yes, 66 minutes,  the certificate was sent to me by Assent's office manager. Below her message was an easily missable email from the Assistant Building Control Surveyor which included the sentence: 

Following your recent service from LB Building Control, we'd love to hear your feedback. It's really simple and all you need to do is click the link below and select a rating out of 5 stars that best represents your experience. We'll assume that your feedback is good if we don't hear from you. 

Ooh, red rag!

So I gave them one star and this feedback.

"This process has been stupendously slow and inefficient with appalling lack of communication.
Assent's treatment of me has been unacceptable and unreasonable. 
Final Inspection was on 09 July 2023.
I was first asked for further information seven weeks later on 2 August.
I have responded to all requests for information promptly and have supplied whatever I was asked to supply but the documentation and drawings I sent seemed to fall into a black hole at Assent. The tracking document was not updated, I was asked to send information that I had already sent, I had to chase countless times and bring in the architect and the builder on my behalf. I believe that the admin staff did their best but the Assistant Building Control Surveyor responsible for my work either does not know what he is doing or is extremely overloaded. Whichever it is, Assent needs to address this problem. This is not a professional standard of work."


There are many missing blips in this story and gradually, as I have the time and energy, I will fill the gaps.