lack of building regulation will it stop my sale!

scotty2

hi
well a number of years ago we had a very small extension built on our kitchen, basically all we had done was the side return filled in and a new polycarbonate roof put on to let in the light . we have now had to fill in a house buyers pack and discovered that we should of had building regulations for it! we wern.t told by our builders and as you can imagine i,m very angry with them but thats for another day
being an honest person i have got on to the council to see if we can get the required regs to which the building inspector said we wouldn,t because it would cause to much damgae to the property,
to my horror i,ve now discovered that because i contacted the council i can no longer get indemnity insurance either!
will my buyers still be able to get a mortgage on my property of has my honesty put pay to all this?

fflsh

Hi, I hope this helps.

We had a large conservatory built about 3 years ago, we went to the maximum we could without needing planning permission.
When I emailed our local planning officer re building regs, he informed me that it wasn't needed provided it had polycarbonate roof and external doors, although perhaps the rules are different in different areas.
I have just remortgaged this house to purchase another with no problem, it was on the market for a while and the HIP surveyor didn't question it, I must have just written on the HIP form that we were told regs weren't needed.
Hope that all makes sense.

fflsh

Sorry I didn't mention the conservatory is accessed from the kitchen and we don't currently have any door between them

ClaudiaC_3

I had a similar experience. The council will issue you with a regularisation certificate once they will inspect the place.
You have to apply for it, they should send you a price list depending on the work you had done.
Someone comes in and looks at the work and then they will release a regularisation certificate.

We had it done for a small roof window. Paid £145 for someone to turn up, glance at the window and agree it was th erigh type of glass
We got the ccertificate a week later. Then found out that the sellers solicitor hadn't even requested it as a condition of sale.

Good luck

DVardysShadow

fflsh wrote: »

Sorry I didn't mention the conservatory is accessed from the kitchen and we don't currently have any door between them

Put the door back in. You then have a problem conservatory and the kitchen is as it was. So any comeback is limited to removal of the conservatory. Put the original door back. Don't be naive and post that you don't have the original door.

fflsh

Well I'm not waiting for any comeback, nor do I have a problem conservatory, I was just posting a factual reply to the original poster. The second post was to explain where it actually was.

Doozergirl

scotty2 wrote: »

hi
well a number of years ago we had a very small extension built on our kitchen, basically all we had done was the side return filled in and a new polycarbonate roof put on to let in the light . we have now had to fill in a house buyers pack and discovered that we should of had building regulations for it! we wern.t told by our builders and as you can imagine i,m very angry with them but thats for another day
being an honest person i have got on to the council to see if we can get the required regs to which the building inspector said we wouldn,t because it would cause to much damgae to the property,
to my horror i,ve now discovered that because i contacted the council i can no longer get indemnity insurance either!
will my buyers still be able to get a mortgage on my property of has my honesty put pay to all this?

If you still have an external door between the house then it shouldn't need to comply with building regs provided it is under a certain size. Most conservatories do not need building regs as long as there is still an external door between house and conservatory.

Frankly, nothing with a polycarbonate roof that is permanently open to the rest of the house is ever going to meet building regs, therefore you're better off putting in doors than trying to get something passed that simply will never pass.

DVardysShadow

fflsh wrote: »

Well I'm not waiting for any comeback, nor do I have a problem conservatory, I was just posting a factual reply to the original poster. The second post was to explain where it actually was.

In terms of your sale, you actually have a problem house. You have to explain to a buyer and his lender that there is no building regs approval and the comeback could be anything as far as the buyer and the lender are concerned. This may put the lender off, it may cause a buyer to choose not to offer on your house or to pull out when the implications are understood.

I was not meaning to be offensive, but to suggest that by putting the door back, you reduce the scale of the issue to being a question of a problem conservatory. Much easier for the buyer to swallow and for the lender to take a risk on, if they both understand that any comeback only affects the conservatory.

Doozergirl has got it spot on from a technical point of view, I was merely making the same case from the point of view of presenting the house to your market. Honest, I was trying to help.

bryanb

DVardysShadow wrote: »

In terms of your sale, you actually have a problem house. You have to explain to a buyer and his lender that there is no building regs approval and the comeback could be anything as far as the buyer and the lender are concerned. This may put the lender off, it may cause a buyer to choose not to offer on your house or to pull out when the implications are understood.

I was not meaning to be offensive, but to suggest that by putting the door back, you reduce the scale of the issue to being a question of a problem conservatory. Much easier for the buyer to swallow and for the lender to take a risk on, if they both understand that any comeback only affects the conservatory.

Doozergirl has got it spot on from a technical point of view, I was merely making the same case from the point of view of presenting the house to your market. Honest, I was trying to help.

I think you're confused between Scotty who is selling and ffish who is not.

DVardysShadow

bryanb wrote: »

I think you're confused between Scotty who is selling and ffish who is not.

So ffish will beam me up then?

fflsh

Hi,
Sorry my second post wasn't clear, it does rather contradict my first post.

I have sliding door frames between the two rooms which are currently removed and were so when the hip and remortgage surveyor did their valuation. I mentioned it as neither mentioned the lack of door seperating the two and it wasn't mentioned anywhere on my hip report. I was just explaining that nothing came of it in my situation. Not very well maybe but I am quite new!

My first post explained all that I was told re building regs.
DVardysShadow, thank you for your helpful post