Many people have had colorful experiences trying to obtain a use permit for a building. These stories often share a common theme: a drawn-out process in which property owners must spend years correcting various deficiencies in their buildings — often ending up like a fairytale hero who, after slaying one dragon head, finds seven more in its place.

Now, the Council on Efficiency and Economic Growth, which has been examining the issue, has proposed that the government replace the burdensome requirement for residential use permits with a simpler usage notification. This would reduce the time and money spent on applications and processing.

Council chair Viljar Arakas told ERR that the current process for obtaining a use permit is extremely complex, bureaucratic and time-consuming — especially for non-professionals, such as private homeowners building for themselves.

"The idea is to make one stage less bureaucratic. Naturally, construction would still have to follow a building design approved by the local government, which issues the building permit. But for single-family homes or duplexes with two units, a usage notification would suffice instead of a formal use permit," Arakas explained.

He emphasized that construction must still be based on a building project and if the local authority that issued the permit suspects the project wasn't followed, it retains the right to inspect the site.

According to Arakas, the change would not apply retroactively and the current rules would continue to apply to apartment buildings, which are typically developed by commercial developers.

Ivo Jaanisoo, deputy secretary general at the Ministry of Climate, said the ministry also believes the proposal is sensible and would reduce red tape. However, unlike the council's suggestion, the ministry's version would also apply to older single-family and duplex homes.

"Legalizing older buildings that currently lack a use permit or supporting documents would become much easier," Jaanisoo confirmed, adding that the government also plans to reduce the current €500 state fee.

He pointed out that buildings completed before 1995 currently require various audits and inspections to be legalized, which he said is unreasonable, since such old structures are already socially accepted. In these cases, a simple survey and submission of data to the construction register would suffice.

The government also plans to replace the building permit requirement for smaller non-residential structures with a building notification and to extend the validity of such notifications from two to four years.

"There will also be a fairly significant change to the design conditions," Jaanisoo noted. "In the future, it will be much easier to specify and adjust detailed plans through design conditions."

According to Jaanisoo, the changes will be codified in the Building Code and will include several updates concerning building permits, use permits and notifications. The amendments have already been prepared and submitted to the government and Jaanisoo said he hopes they will be approved and sent to the Riigikogu within the coming weeks.

"The government still needs to decide which proposals to move forward with," the deputy secretary general added.

Last year, nearly 1,650 single-family and duplex homes were issued use permits.

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