Loft space HELP!

Urgh! This takes me back!! Our current house had a "room" in the attic too. Turns out whoever had done the job had cut out all of the thick supporting wood doodahs right the way down the length of the attic. The mortgage company didn't even bother with a retainer - the just outright wouldn't lend us the money until we'd fixed it. Thankfully we have a good friend who is a joiner and the house was a bargain so we carried it out. We had to exchange contracts and then do the work before completion.

It had actually gotten building regs too, but there must have been some kind of back-hander going on because even *i* could see that what they'd done was pure stupid.

Good luck with it!

Hi,
Very old loft conversions seem to escape the enforcement of the Building Control Officer (BCO) but many of these are often death traps and having surveyed one some time after a young lady had died within such a non complying conversion, I can tell you non compliance with current fire / means of escape regs should be made a criminal offence.

More recent loft conversions do need Building Regs approval (and some need LA Planning Approval too) and that applies to it being an office / playroom just as much as it applies to it being a bedroom.

If it is habitable space you have to comply as you aren't going to kid anyone that it is only down as an office but on the quiet the kids sleep up there. If you have a claim on your insurance and they spot you are using the loft as a habitable room and by that I mean office / playroom / bedroom / study / music room, call it what you will when it doesn't comply you risk being uninsured and in my book as I indicated above just plain stupid if you are prepared to risk your family getting burnt to death just because you don't like the red tape and expense of compliance. I even see people keep a loft ladder and access trap but put their kids up there to sleep on the quiet - great fun until they couldn't get out with the thick black smoke from a fire.

This is entirely the vendors problem and not yours. They have to obtain retrospective approval from the BCO (and if applicable the LA Planning Authority) and undertake all necessary works to comply entirely at their own expense not yours. Otherwise that loft is simply storage that from what you are saying needs corrective works simply to return it to its original design just to make the roof safe which again should be entirely at the vendors expense not yours. Kindest regards David Aldred Independent damp and timber surveyor.

Well done Stivy for pushing to speak with somebody who knows what they were on about and not just a sales pitch - please appreciate that void insurance just wouldn't only apply to the illegal conversion area it would apply to your entire house, so if you had a fire you loose the lot with no insurance and even a claim for something that is nothing to do with the loft may well void because you have lied to them in the same way a drunk driver not declaring they have been banned when getting insurance. If you think insurance doesn't matter think how you would go on if your childrens friend died up there and you were not insured.

The estate agent should know very well they are on dodgy ground trying to market this as habitable space and their advise to you and anyone else they attempt to mislead appears to be negligent.

Kindst regards, David Aldred Independent damp and timber surveyor