Permitting: the delays are not where you expect them

Anyone building in Hungary for the first time typically worries about the length of the permitting procedure. Experience suggests otherwise: the authority has a statutory deadline, and it generally keeps to it. Most of the time is lost before the procedure begins — months pass before the application is even in a submittable state.

The clock does not start with the application

The deadline only runs on a complete submission. A request for missing documents costs more than its own turnaround time: design capacity has to be booked again, and consultations with the specialist authorities have to be run again. Two or three such rounds quietly consume six months — while on paper "permitting is in progress".

What can be settled in advance

Most delays can be traced back to a handful of questions that are worth clarifying before the land is even purchased:

• Does the intended activity fit within the applicable zoning plan, or is an amendment required?
• Is a preliminary assessment or a full environmental impact assessment needed — and if so, on what schedule?
• Are the utility and road connection declarations in place, and how long are they valid?
• Is the site affected by archaeological interests, protected natural assets or a neighbouring Natura 2000 area?
• Are ownership and easement arrangements in order, and is the planned connection route free of encumbrances?

None of these are difficult questions. What is difficult is discovering the answer to the first two just two months before construction is due to start.

Running things in parallel yields the greatest time savings

Design, permitting and applying for the grid connection are not sequential steps. Handle them one after the other and the deadlines add up; handle them in parallel and only the longest one sets the limit. For a mid-sized industrial project the difference is typically about nine months.

A permit is therefore not a document you receive at the end of the process. It is a schedule you write at the very outset — or fail to write, in which case it writes itself for you.