need proof of planning permision for a indoor wall that was knocked through

puddy

would the surveyor do this though, i knew that was how they tell but i thought that surveyors wont move stuff to look. how does he lift the carpet up in someones house? i would like them to, i just thought they wouldnt, he would have to lift the underlay and stuff i suppose. the carpets looked new to us (although we will remove them we dont like carpet)

poppysarah

Not a clue - if you've asked him to investigate you'll have to see what he says.

Thriftysaver

Hi

I sold my house 6 years ago and I had a wall knocked through from kitchen to diner (with an rsj fitted) some 5 years previous. The sureyor said it was ok as it had been done more than 12 months. I paid for an indemnity insurance for peace of mind it cost me £20 that was in March 2003.

HTH

Thriftysaver

Doozergirl

jenner wrote: »

would the surveyor do this though, i knew that was how they tell but i thought that surveyors wont move stuff to look. how does he lift the carpet up in someones house? i would like them to, i just thought they wouldnt, he would have to lift the underlay and stuff i suppose. the carpets looked new to us (although we will remove them we dont like carpet)

If it's bearing the load of any of the roof it will be evident in the loft.

1984ReturnsForReal_2

how does the surveyor know whether its load bearing without looking at the joists upstairs? the bedrooms have carpet down
--

They cant.

Patr100

We had the buyers of a property try this on recently. Wanted £75 for such a policy for works that were actually done in the early 1980s long long before our time.
Our solicitor said after 4 (?) years or so it didn't matter about local authority permissions or regs - we just happened to have evidence from the previous owners anyway.
Given the time scale it should be down to the buyers to take reponsibility for such issues when they buy an older property.

Richard_Webster

There are always two issues with walls being removed:

1. Most important - is it safe? Has the work been done properly. You may want a surveyor to tell you although if it was done many years ago and there are no obvious signs of cracks etc you might take a view on it. (Lots of older properties have features and methods of construction that would not be at all acceptable by modern standards, but nobody seems to worry.)
2. Is there going to be any legal liability because of i?. In practice, No, because Local Authorities haven't got the resources to worry about minor works to domestic properties. However mortgage lenders make unrealistically detailed demands that solicitors check for possible building regulation contraventions going back many years - some lenders limit this to the period of potential enforcement, others 10 years, but others (e.g. Halifax) place no limit on how far back we have to go. This is silly and one would hope that the lenders would take a more sensibile approach to this kind of point, where there is no real risk to them, rather than fussing about this kind of thing and potentially blaming solicitors for getting it wrong and yet they were happily lending foolishly high loan to value ratios on over priced properties.

ab7167

poppysarah wrote: »

You look at what way the floorboards run. either through thin carpet or lifting it up. the joists run the other way. apparently.
It was on telly earlier on.

Sorry, but this is not always true and you need to be very careful with this kind of sweeping statement. I have been caught out by this assumption when desiging internal alterations.

It is possible that there are 2 sets of floorboards running perpendicular to each other, in which case the top set (which you see when you take the carpet up) will be parallel to joists, not perpendicular as you say.

In addition, even if the wall is not supporting the floor, it may be supporting the wall above. If the joists run parallel to the wall, the wall may be continuous through the floor to the roof. This situation would most definitley require either a lintel or a steel, depending on the width of the opening and if the roof were supported or not.

The only way to tell beyond doubt is to either have the floor up, or the ceiling down. End of.

Having ceiling down is my personal preference, as it is much easier to cut a small hole in the plasterboard in the corner of a room and to put it back up afterwards than it is to get floorboards up without damaging them.

Alex

puddy

thanks every9ne, yes, as i say, im not bothered about building regs, its just that i dont want to buy something that has the likelihood of coming down in later years.

i dont think that its 'trying it on' to find out about things like this, its buyer beware, so i need to check everything out before i take a huge financial committment on and therefore if the seller wants to sell, then they should be doing all they can to enable me to buy. i dont want an indemnity policy in any case as they are not worth the paper they're written on.

i forgot to phone the surveyor today, hopefully they havent made an appointment yet but im sure i would ahve been informed if that was the case