We understand that Oculus Building Consultancy and LB Building Control Limited, both part of the Assent Group, ceased trading around 30 October 2025.
All Initial Notices that have not received a final certificate are either being cancelled or transferred to another Registered Building Control Approver (RCBA). Please check your emails for any communication from them.
As a result of this, we are experiencing a high volume of Initial Notice cancellations. We are processing these as quickly as we can and will be contacting affected customers.
What you now need to do
If your project is still ongoing, you need to take the following action immediately.
You will need to either:
- appoint another Registered Building Control Approver, within 7 days of receiving your cancellation notice
- revert the work to Solihull Council
If you have not started your project
You only need to submit a Building Regulation’s application to us or appoint another registered building control approver before the work starts.
If the works have started
If works have already started and 7 days has passed since the initial notice was cancelled by your chosen RBCA, your only option is to apply for a reversion, which must be made to the Local Authority in accordance with national regulations.
Reverting your project to Solihull Council
When reverting your project to ourselves, you will need to:
- Complete a Reversion application form and submit this to us at buildingcontrol@solihull.gov.uk
- Agree our fees – unfortunately any reversion application due to this issue will require a separate fee to cover the necessary works and will need to be individually determined.
- Provide as much information additional as possible about your scheme e.g.:
- plans
- specifications
- calculations
- fire service and Severn Trent consultation responses (where relevant)
- plan check documents, etc.
- Provide evidence in the form of site inspection records - It is understood that Oculus/Assent are making these records available to you via a portal if you don’t already have them, if the initial notice is in the name of your builder/agent, it’s likely the records will have been sent to them.
It is important that you act now to avoid a situation where your building work is treated as unauthorised, or continues to progress, and you then are asked to expose work not previously inspected by a Registered Building Inspector in accordance with the requirements of the Building Safety Regulator.
Providing previous site inspection records may reduce our costs and provided we are happy with the content of the records, they may help reduce the impact of this unfortunate situation.
How to get in touch
If you need to contact us about this issue, please email buildingcontrol@solihull.gov.uk. So we can prioritise your enquiry, please put either ‘Oculus’ or ‘LB’ in the subject field, together with your site address.
If you have any concerns regarding the Assent Group, you should contact the Building Safety Regulator.
While we appreciate the frustration caused by this news, there may be delays responding to any requests due to the extra work we are dealing with.
Thank you for your patience and understanding whilst we continue to work through these issues.