Our architect submitted the plans to the commune at the end of September. According to the Belgian law, the whole process should take +/- 3 months. So, we scheduled a fitting-out meeting with DaVinci in the second week of January.

We've heard countless times that after submitting the file to the commune, no news is good news. So, we assumed everything was running nicely and we were about to get the permission any time now.

A Flemish work colleague told us about a site where one could see the status. We logged in on 06/01/19 (fortunately, Laura has the Belgian ID with a chip) and lo-and-behold, lots of orange bits in the status. After a loot of online translation, we figured out that we needed to sign online before the file could progress further. That's 3 months wasted!

I've looked through my correspondence with the architect and there was no mention of the fact that we'd need to sign things online, simply because we signed on each sheet of paper of the plans submitted.

Next Monday, I rang the planning office of the Commune and, after waiting about 20 mins, I've been told they have not receivved anything. So, the file was blocked by our signatures :( I've rang our architect and the was very surprised the file was not received. The then asked me: you've signed... To which I replied it's the first time I hear about this, and I haven't got any email from anywhere else...

Great! :(