The building permit on rural land: why it takes twice as long
The legal term is identical to the urban one: forty-five working days. What doubles is everything that has to be ready before you file, and that is where the months nobody counted go.
Gustavo Mejía Martínez6 min de lectura
I will start by taking my own title apart, because that is the honest thing to do: "twice as long" is not a measured fact. There is no published statistic in Colombia comparing the duration of urban permitting with rural permitting, and anybody who gives you a figure did not get it from anywhere.
More than that: the legal term is exactly the same. Forty-five working days, urban or rural, curaduría urbana — the private permitting office — or municipal planning department. The rule draws no distinction.
And yet the perception is right, and it has a technical explanation. What gets longer in the countryside is not the study of the application: it is everything that has to be settled before the clock starts running. That much can be explained with the rules in hand, and it is what this article is about.
The clock does not start when you hand over papers
Curadores urbanos and the municipal or district body in charge of the study, processing and issuing of permits shall have a maximum term of forty-five (45) working days to resolve applications […] Once that term has expired, positive administrative silence shall apply.
The phrase that decides everything is not in the quotation, it is in the condition: the 45 days run from filing in due and proper form, that is, with the file complete. An incomplete file does not start the clock, and it does not freeze the rules either.
What gets added in the countryside
| Requirement | On urban land? | On rural land? | Who it depends on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Certificate on the legal status of the property | Yes | Yes | Land registry |
| Written ruling on the planning rules | Yes | Yes | Municipality |
| Topographic survey | Yes | Yes, and usually longer | Surveyor |
| Soil survey and structural design | Yes | Yes | Civil engineer |
| Availability of public services | Certificate from the provider | An evidenced solution of your own, where there is no network | Provider or corporación |
| Water concession | No | Yes, if the water comes from a source of your own | Corporación autónoma regional |
| Discharge permit or approved treatment system | No | Yes, if there is no sewer | Corporación autónoma regional |
| Delimitation of the watercourse buffer | Sometimes | Nearly always | Corporación autónoma regional |
| Forest use permit, if trees have to be felled | Rarely | Frequently | Corporación autónoma regional |
| Applicable maximum density | Does not apply | Yes, on suburban land | Corporación autónoma regional |
| Check on the Unidad Agrícola Familiar | Does not apply | Yes, if there was or will be a subdivision | National land authority |
The four causes of delay, in order of weight
1. The environmental procedures are separate processes
A water concession or a discharge permit is not an annex to the permit file: they are complete administrative procedures, with an application, a technical site visit, an assessment and a formal decision. They run at the corporación autónoma regional, not at the curaduría, and how long they take depends on each corporación.
2. The planning enquiry is harder to make
In a large city, the written ruling on the planning rules is applied for online and arrives with the use, the treatment and the ratios. In many rural municipalities the POT — the municipal land-use plan — is not published in a viewer anybody can consult, the mapping is of low resolution, and the exact position of the property on that mapping is arguable.
That produces a back and forth that appears in no legal term: clarifying which category the property falls into before anything can be designed at all.
3. There is hardly ever a curaduría
In municipalities with no curador urbano appointed, the permit is issued by the municipal planning office. That has a real financial advantage — charging expensas is prohibited — and an operational cost:
In no case are the municipal or district authorities in charge of the study, processing and issuing of permits authorised to make charges by way of expensas.
The planning office of a small municipality does many things besides issue permits, and the permit competes for the time of the same team. The legal term is the same; the capacity is not.
4. The file is filed incomplete
It is the most expensive mistake and the most frequent. Filing "to secure a date" without everything ready gains nothing: the term does not start running, the rules do not freeze, and at worst the procedure ends in abandonment.
The other confusion: which permit you need
In the countryside two different permits are sometimes needed, and applying for the wrong one costs you the whole procedure:
| What you want to do | Which permit | Validity |
|---|---|---|
| Divide a rural property | Subdivision | 12 months, cannot be extended |
| Create plots with infrastructure works | Parcelación, the rural counterpart of an urbanisation | 36 months |
| Build the house from scratch | Construction in the new build modality | 36 months |
| Extend, adapt, alter or strengthen what exists | Construction in whichever modality applies | 24 months |
The extension has to be applied for no later than 30 working days before expiry — working days, not calendar days — with the documentation complete and a sworn statement that the works have already begun.
How it actually gets shorter
Almost all the time that can be won lies before filing, not after. In order of return:
- Start with the corporación autónoma regional, not with the municipality. It decides more things and it takes longest. Ask in writing: applicable density, watercourse buffer over the property, and what it requires for water and discharges.
- Commission the soil survey as soon as you have the plot. It is one of the few things that can be brought forward without having decided anything about the house, and it governs the whole structure.
- Settle water and sanitation at concept design stage, not at the finishes stage. They decide where the house can stand as much as the ground does.
- Check the Unidad Agrícola Familiar before buying. If the property was born of an irregular division, no later procedure puts it right.
- File complete. It is the only way for the forty-five working days to be forty-five working days.
The short answer
The rural permit does not take longer because the official is slower. It takes longer because the file demands seven things that do not exist in the city, and six of them are decided by a body other than the one that issues the permit.
Anyone who starts with the corporación autónoma regional and leaves filing until they have everything does not live through that "double". Anyone who starts with the drawing does.
Fuentes
- Decreto 1077 de 2015, plazos, trámite y expensas de las licencias urbanísticas · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 26 May 2015
- Decreto 1783 de 2021, artículo 27: vigencia de las licencias urbanísticas · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 20 December 2021
- Decreto 1076 de 2015, único reglamentario del sector ambiente: concesiones de agua y permisos de vertimiento · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 26 May 2015
- Ley 99 de 1993, competencias de las corporaciones autónomas regionales · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 22 December 1993
- Ley 160 de 1994, unidad agrícola familiar y fraccionamiento de predios rurales · Departamento Administrativo de la Función Pública · 3 August 1994
Tengo un lote y quiero construir.
Revisamos qué permite la norma en su predio, qué se puede construir y cuánto cuesta, antes de dibujar nada. Después desarrollamos el proyecto completo hasta los planos con los que se pide la licencia.