Can someone be legally compelled to do their job?

Am I reading it correctly that, you called building control on yourself?

In is there job to enforce building regulations. But that is does not extend to performing project progress inspections or contract administration.

If a building is not compliant. The fault lies with the builder, the certifier and the owner or developer. The split of that liability depends on how the work came about and what the noncompliant is.

was it just you and the builder involved or did you have an engineer/architect etc retained too?

if it was just you and the builder then by cutting the cost of a construction professional to oversee the works you can leave yourself open to these sorts of problems potentially.

if you had an engineer etc, supervising the build then they should have been working alot of that out

might i ask why the builder was not terminated during construction if the works were so obviously not in accordance with regs? can you give examples of what was wrong also?

a prosecution also would have not have got the works redone to the required standard.

The builder is working for the house owner. The house owner is given a grant to cover the cost, but the contract is still between the house owner and the builder. If the builder doesn't do the work, it is up to the house owner to sue the builder, the same enforcement mechanism as anyone has when engaging a private contractor.

In terms of building control, the legislation is fairly weak, and Building Control officers have said in the past that on the rare occasions that they do take a case to Court, they rarely get support from the judges.

On the broader issue of getting public bodies to carry out particular functions, you can try escalating to senior management, or to the Board or Councillors (for a local authority). You can make a complaint to the Ombudsman if they failed to do something, though that's often a fairly fruitless route. I would suggest it would be fruitless in this case.

I'm amazed to hear that an LA get directly involved, AND covered hotel costs. Maybe they saw an exceptional need in your case, or maybe they were terrified of you getting onto Joe Duffy, who knows.

your remedy for your issues with the builder was taking the builder to court. you getting prosecuted for breaching building regulations would not help you.

Planning enforcement did the right thing. Them doing an inspection would not have helped you in any way.

and how would that have helped you?

and you would still be living in substandard building works. and facing prosecution of your own.

In the unlikely event that the Council did prosecute the builder under building regs, it would have taken longer for such a prosecution to happen than any direct legal action you might take against the builder. Building regs are not black and white absolute rules. The TGD documents are 'guidance' not absolute requirements. There are many ways to achieve compliance with the actual regs, which tend to be very broad and high level. The TGD is one way, but not the only way to achieve compliance.

What exactly do you mean when you say the Council signed off on the work. Are you talking about approval of the grant? What kind of sign-off are you talking about please?

To the OP, like many things in life your situation is complicated.

Building control's job is to ensure that building regulations are complied with.

In your case they will pursue you as the home owner.

You employed the builder.

If you believe that the builder did construct accordance to regulations then you must prove this.

To do so you must get a qualified person to state where the failures are.

You then take this information to a solicitor and commence proceedings against the builder(assuming you have a provable case).

It's mentioned that you had no qualified supervision on the builder.

Regrettably this is a common occurrence where people get "small" jobs done around the house.

For most of works out without issue. But when it goes wrong it can leave the home owner hanging.

I am glad that you got it sorted.