No building regs - trying to sell house

[Jenniflower]

Dont have building regs. Arghh

[poppysarah]

How did you get planning consent without building regs? I thought you had to have both? (I only have a vague memory and can't get to my file of stuff at the moment)

[DVardysShadow]

Originally Posted by poppysarah

How did you get planning consent without building regs? I thought you had to have both?

Planning consent comes before building regs. Who is going to get building regs for a building which might fail to get planning regs?

[Vincenzo]

Planning & building regs are entirely separate but I am amazed neither your architect nor your builder advised you of the need for building regs.

What have your buyers said? I expect they would still be able to get a mortgage but their lender may want the valuer to give their opinion as to how this affects value. It will depend upon the advice given by their solicitor, the underwriters and the policy of the lender. The buyers may not wish to proceed now anyway.

To be honest the only resolution I can see is to have the works fully inspected, ascertain what is required to make it comply and have the work done. Either that or agree the costs of doing so with the buyers and reduce the sale price accordingly, assuming they are still willing and able to proceed.

[poppysarah]

Originally Posted by DVardysShadow

Planning consent comes before building regs. Who is going to get building regs for a building which might fail to get planning regs?

I remember the forms all going off at the same time - and building inspector coming out....
Why they'd let you get planning permission without asking about your building regs I am not sure...

[silvercar]

Offer to your buyers that you will pay for them to take out an indemnity policy. They can take one out. The fact that no-one can claim on it is irrelevant, if you read the details they only apply for building alterations at leaswt 12 months old and the council can only order you to take remedial action for non complying with building regs within 12 months. All an indemnity policy does is keep the mortgage lender happy and keep the buyer content - they are not designed for people to claim, hence the cheap price.

[Vincenzo]

Originally Posted by poppysarah

I remember the forms all going off at the same time - and building inspector coming out....
Why they'd let you get planning permission without asking about your building regs I am not sure...

How can the building inspector inspect work that has not even begun yet? I would certainly not want to pay the buidling regs fees until I knew I had planning permission either.

In my experience the building regs inspector will tend not ask if you have planning permission any more than the planner will ask if you intend to inform building regs.

[Vincenzo]

poppysarah - out of interest I just had a look into this further and you can submit plans of proposed building works for approval. For some type sof work this is required. It sounds like this is what you did but for small jobs like a garage conversion you would normally just inform them when you intend to start and they will periodically inspect.

[kmmr]

Building Regs is well past the planning permission stage. Even building regs drawings tend to be much more detailled (read, expensive) that planning drawings, so you wouldn't bother until you had at least recieved planning permission.

Building inspectors from the council can approve off the building regs drawings later on, but I believe they also come onsite during and after the build to ensure that you are complying with your drawings.

However, I CAN believe your builder may not have told you this. My builder never said a word on the last job I did. I am not sure how I am going to address this when I sell, as I think it may not comply, compounded by the effect of ever more stringent building regs that may have come into force since you did the work. You have to comply to current standards, if you don't have permission from before.

[molerat]

I am suprised that the architect did not mention it. When I had plans done he told me both scenarios, submitted plans informally to planning. Planning came back saying PP was required due to building area so he altered plans (fiddled figures ) to bring area down so no PP required and then submitted to BC. He seemed to know what was needed. I think your architect was possible negligent.

Can you not get a "certificate of comfort" as in Scotland where the council will say it complied at the time it was built and they will not enforce.

[PasturesNew]

Did you have the architect:
a] Draw up the plans only
b] Draw up the plans and submit them only
c] Be involved in everything to the point where he saw the final result/kitchen finished?

It's quite possible that somebody might engage an architect for [a] and [a]/[b], but if they didn't understand/pick up on further stages and the importance of building regs. It's possible that the architect assumes the client has gone elsewhere or can't afford it. It'd be for the client to contact the architect and say "Hey - OK, good to go ... what's next?". If the architect was performing [c] then it's clearly the architect's error.

As for the builder, a lot of builders will build what you tell them. What paperwork was the builder working from? Which set of drawings? Who was instructing them/making decisions?

[G_M]

Pasture has identified the key question.
The builder should have built what he was told to build but the architect now has doubts about the foundations - so you may have a case against the builder - but only for not following the Plans. Unless your contract with the builder specifically included getting Building Regs sign-off, then it was not his job.
The architect drew up plans. He may have submitted them to the Planning Dept, or maybe the OP did this and the architects involvement ended there.
The architect may have been further involved overseeing the building work (though I doubt this if the foundations are dodgy!).
If you paid the architect to oversee the entire project then clearly he was negligent and you have a case against him for not involving the Building Regs Dept.
However if his involvement ended before the build phase, then getting Building Regs sign-off was clearly YOUR responsibility.

[Jenniflower]

Thanks all for your advice.

Will let you know how it all works out.

[dubsey]

Had exactly the same happen on one of our previous properties. Garage converted to a study. Architect drew up and submitted plans, got the planning permission through. Used a friend of the family to do the cnversion, who said leave it all to him and he would get it all done. By the time work had finished we had decided to sell, but it was finished on Christmas eve so it was January before we thought to ask for the certificate for building regs.

Very long story short, he hadn't done it (in his day you didn't need to!!) Employed another builder - stupidly were going to use him in the first place but felt obligated to use family friend - he got the building inspector out and needless to say, our beautiful real wood flooring had to come up and we had to have various vents etc put in. He had also not dug foundations at the front where the garage door had been, he had just started building straight onto the drive, so this had to be dug into and foundations put in. Funny thing was we had sold to someone across the road, so they could see all this going on, luckily he was a builder so knew exactly what and why we were doing things.

It cost us an extra £1200 but it didn't stop us selling, just money and inconvenience while it was re-done.