The Building Regulations

The Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004 prescribes national minimum standards for buildings that have been set by the Scottish Government. These regulations apply to the construction, conversion or demolition of buildings. The standards can be found in Schedule 5 to Regulation 9 of the regulations and are in the form of expanded functional standards. The standards describe the functions a building should perform such as for example providing resistance to spread of fire.

View or download The Building (Scotland) Regulations 2004

The Building Regulations are mandatory but the choice of how to comply lies with the building owner or designer. The Technical Handbooks for both domestic and non-domestic proposals have been issued by Scottish Ministers for the purposes of providing practical guidance as to how the functional standards that are contained within the

Building Regulations may be attained. If this guidance is followed in full then this should be accepted as a means of demonstrating that the Building Regulations have been complied with.

Following the advice as contained within the Technical Handbooks is therefore likely to be the normal way of complying with the Building Regulations. However, a designer may put forward other ways of meeting the Regulations, in the form of alternative solutions.

The Technical Handbooks for both domestic and non domestic projects are available to view or to download as necessary by clicking on the links below.

Technical Handbooks - domestic and non domestic