Q&A - Plans for a Building 

ANSWER

The copyright attached to the drawings vests in their creator, usually the architect who was instructed during the planning and development of your Building. If you are able to identify the architect who designed your Building, you could try to contact him / her to obtain a copy of the drawings but be prepared to pay a fee. Your local authority might be able to tell you who the architect was.

Also, it is possible that your local authority might have the drawings on file, so it is worthwhile contacting the relevant offices of Planning and Building Control (usually separate departments), in any event. 

Your chances of success via the local authority will depend entirely on your local authority. For example, upon recently making enquires of one local authority, we were told its system only goes back 15 years and for a block built approximately 1998, the information would be on an old system and it's possible any files would have been destroyed. That local authority also said that, even if it does have the drawings on file, you would need to provide a substantial reason to persuade the local authority to retrieve the drawings from archive, something the local authority will not do 'on a whim' but even if the drawings can be retrieved, the local authority won't copy them so as to protect the copyright. 

That said, I am intrigued by the notion that you need a full set of drawings in order to maintain your Building and I don't know why you would but contact me directly, if you disagree.  

Shmuli Simon LLB, Consultant Solicitor at Integrity Property Management Ltd