Garage conversion and building regs

timmyt

indemnity is fine, as a conveyancing lawyer it compensates you should Council enforce. Your surveyor will advise if the works are substandard.

surveyors and conveyancers and lenders and clients get house sold and resold as routine with insurance likle this.

remember many houses who were once compliant are no longer. regs change etc.

steve1971

chappers wrote: »

I agree with everything else you have said, but could you point me to the legislation that prevents enforcement of building regs more than 12 months from completion of any un-notified works.

Hi Chappers

s.36 of the Building Act 1984 'Removal or alteration of offending work': This essentially says that If the work is not corrected under s.35 and is considered serious then the Council can serve a s.36 on the owner requiring removal or correction within 28 days. A s.36 notice must be served within 12 months of completion of work.

However, the Magistrates Court act 1980 requires that proceedings commence within 6 months of the time when offence committed (not from when the inspection was done).

Because of the very tight timeframe and the expense to the Council of preparing a case, this is very, very rarely done, and then only in exceptional circumstances.

hope this helps

regards

Steve

nodebt_2

"I am a Building Control Officer and .................... "


Steve, could I pick your brains please. We had an extension over our garage in 2000. I remember building control coming out at various stages and we have a document showing building regs approval of plans. However, we cannot find the sign off document and I am a devil for shredding things and suspect this is what happened. I just wanted to ring council and ask them for a copy - sol suggested that this could be problematic if, as I'm sure is not the case as builder very reputable, we didn't get final sign off. Builder now retired and has moved so cannot go down that route. Obviously don't want to delay any sale without having this document. What would your advice be?

surreybased

Hi,

One other potential issue is planning - we had our garage converted and needed to get planning as the council viewed it as a loss to a parking place (who uses a garage for parking!). We had to show that we could still park 3 vehicles on the drive before the conversion was allowed. This may not apply in your area but also worth checking.

steve1971

nodebt wrote: »

"We had an extension over our garage in 2000. I remember building control coming out at various stages and we have a document showing building regs approval of plans. However, we cannot find the sign off document

If the job was signed off then this would be revealed in any searches the buyers solicitors will undertake, but the Council should be able to provide a copy of the Completion Certificate to you, albeit maybe for a small admin charge.

If the job was never signed off (quite common as once the builder has been paid there is no incentive for them to call Building Control again) then the file should still be open, there is no time limit on how long you have to complete the job once its commenced. You should contact your local Building Control department to come and do a completion inspection, if they are satisfied that it complies with the Building Regulations (at the time of commencement) then they will issue a certificate, if not they should be able to advise what you what they require.

good luck

Steve

timmyt

dont approach the Council as you will not be able to get indemnity insurance. speak to your lawyer not this forum

Thrugelmir

timmyt wrote: »

dont approach the Council as you will not be able to get indemnity insurance. speak to your lawyer not this forum

I'd be as much concerned about the build quality, electrics, floor insulation etc as the indemnity insurance.

marcg

The reality of the risk is relatively low. Steve covers it thus:

"damp, inadequate ventilation, insufficient insulation, DIY electrics and possibly the layout may not provide the occupants with a safe 'Means of Escape' in the case of a fire."

Taking this point by point:

damp - presumably the garage was built without wall insulation (although this is sometimes not the case with integral garages), definitely without floor or roof insulation. If the new room linings are also uninsulated then moist warm air may condense within the walls, causing mould growth/potential timber rot causing structural failure should the walls rely on the timber for support. If the walls are brick/block-built then the risk is correspondingly only likely to be of mould.

inadequate ventilation - the regs require trickle vents to windows and also the insulation may require ventilating (or risk the damp issues listed before). A room without trickle vents is equivalent to most houses older than 20 years old. The ventilation issue may also relate to any WC or utility room - very moist/smelly, in which case we're back at the rotting walls risk.

insufficient insulation - covered this already.

DIY electrics - serious safety risk but any riskier than the rest of the house? Unless it's a new house with an electrical safety certificate, that is.

No safe means of escape - does the new room impede any other room from escaping (ie do you need to go through the garage to escape from the rest of the house?) Unlikely. OR there is no safe way of escaping from the garage. Unless the new room has no windows, this is also unlikely.

The only other issue not mentioned was were any walls knocked down to get into the garage? If so this is a structural risk.

My point about all the above is; why aren't we talking about the probability of risk rather than risk elimination? As building professionals we know that a garage conversion is not really a big dangerous project. Not like a loft conversion with ceiling joist floors or an extension with new walls with no lateral stability. This was probably a dot and dab, battened floor conversion using the original doorway. If this was a Victorian house we'd have a completely different attitude.

My view (and note the caveats in my signature) is don't worry about it - look for evidence of a cover-up (fresh paint, open windows on viewings, cracks, dehumidifiers) but don't write it off.

timmyt

marcg wrote: »

The reality of the risk is relatively low. Steve covers it thus:

"damp, inadequate ventilation, insufficient insulation, DIY electrics and possibly the layout may not provide the occupants with a safe 'Means of Escape' in the case of a fire."

Taking this point by point:

damp - presumably the garage was built without wall insulation (although this is sometimes not the case with integral garages), definitely without floor or roof insulation. If the new room linings are also uninsulated then moist warm air may condense within the walls, causing mould growth/potential timber rot causing structural failure should the walls rely on the timber for support. If the walls are brick/block-built then the risk is correspondingly only likely to be of mould.

inadequate ventilation - the regs require trickle vents to windows and also the insulation may require ventilating (or risk the damp issues listed before). A room without trickle vents is equivalent to most houses older than 20 years old. The ventilation issue may also relate to any WC or utility room - very moist/smelly, in which case we're back at the rotting walls risk.

insufficient insulation - covered this already.

DIY electrics - serious safety risk but any riskier than the rest of the house? Unless it's a new house with an electrical safety certificate, that is.

No safe means of escape - does the new room impede any other room from escaping (ie do you need to go through the garage to escape from the rest of the house?) Unlikely. OR there is no safe way of escaping from the garage. Unless the new room has no windows, this is also unlikely.

The only other issue not mentioned was were any walls knocked down to get into the garage? If so this is a structural risk.

My point about all the above is; why aren't we talking about the probability of risk rather than risk elimination? As building professionals we know that a garage conversion is not really a big dangerous project. Not like a loft conversion with ceiling joist floors or an extension with new walls with no lateral stability. This was probably a dot and dab, battened floor conversion using the original doorway. If this was a Victorian house we'd have a completely different attitude.

My view (and note the caveats in my signature) is don't worry about it - look for evidence of a cover-up (fresh paint, open windows on viewings, cracks, dehumidifiers) but don't write it off.

well said.

steve1971

timmyt wrote: »

indemnity is fine, as a conveyancing lawyer it compensates you should Council enforce. .

As a conveyancing lawyer this is more your realm than mine, can you explain what there is to insure against if enforcement action by the Council is statute barred?

timmyt wrote: »

remember many houses who were once compliant are no longer. regs change etc.

There's a good reason why regs get updated timmyt.