Permit applications complete before the statutory clock starts
A municipal planning department where the legal response period began on receipt, whether or not the application was complete.
Who they are.
A municipal planning department. Its legal response period starts on receipt of an application, whether or not that application is complete — which means an incomplete file consumes the department’s own deadline.
Anonymised at the client’s request. Client names are never disclosed without written permission.
What had to be solved.
The statutory clock ran while officers were still asking for missing plans. Completeness was assessed by whoever opened the file first, and refusals for incompleteness generated appeals the department had to defend.
What success looked like.
- Establish completeness on the day of receipt, consistently
- Tell the applicant the exact missing document immediately
- Make each decision cite the rule and document behind it
What Ceertia does here.
A use case per permit type, declaring the documents the statute requires. Completeness is established the day the application lands, and the applicant receives a specific request rather than a general refusal.
Every application must contain all documents the statute requires for its permit type.
How it runs, step by step.
The file arrives with its documents, in any format, from whoever sends it.
Every page is identified and mapped against the expected document list. Missing documents, duplicates and out-of-scope pages are flagged on receipt.
Each rule asks the file a question and answers it directly on the documents, with page, zone and source text attached to the verdict.
The team approves, requests a fix, or rejects. No file is approved or rejected automatically.
What changed.
Roughly five days per file were reclaimed from the statutory period. Appeals fell because a refusal now names the missing document and the provision requiring it.
- The statutory clock ran while officers were still asking for missing plans.
- Completeness was assessed by whoever opened the file first.
- Refusals for incompleteness generated appeals the department had to defend.
- Completeness is established on the day of receipt, consistently.
- The applicant is told the exact missing document immediately.
- Each decision cites the rule and the document behind it.
Anonymised case. Client names are never disclosed without written permission. Figures describe the file volumes and checks in this scenario.
Other files, same engine.
A public procurement office where every tender opened with days of administrative compliance checking before technical evaluation could begin.
Read the case → GovernmentBenefit decisions that survive an appealA social benefits agency whose refusals were regularly appealed, and whose case files could not always show what had been checked.
Read the case →See it run on your own files.
Bring one real file to a 30-minute demo. Watch the verification run, evidence on screen.