No-building-regs misery

MrsGrey

I am selling my house, bought in 1984. In 1986 we did a kitchen/morning room "knock through" with RSJ, new patio door, a window blocked... Being young and foolish we didn't get planning consent or building regs consent. Now I have to fill in the questionnaire for the HIP and it asks if these were obtained. What is the worst that could happen? If a prospective purchaser demands that the council is consulted re the work, can I refuse (of course i would lose the sale)? Could I be required to undo the work? I have no reason to think it isn't structurally sound, but I am not a building regs expert... My ex-husband thinks I should just not mention the work, implying (not stating) that it was done before we bought the house, but I am not comfortable with that...

mr_badcrumble

Hi,
It would be best in my opinion not to make false statements in the hip, as these will invariably come back to bite you later. If your buyer finds out that you have lied you will loose their trust!
As far as planning is concerned it sounds like what you had done would now come under permitted development ie no planning required. This is a moot point as the building work was finished well over 4 years ago they cannot take any action against you.(There is also a 10 year rule which relates more to change of use)
Building regs are something else, the above rules do not apply. You could go to the council to get certification, but you risk the work done is not up to scratch and this could cost£££ to put right.
The potential buyer will no doubt get a survey done, which should spot any problems, if there are you may well be asked for a drop in price.
The buyers solicitor should spot the building regs problem, and you may have to buy an indemnity policy to cover the buyer in the very unlikely event the council do come knocking. Your solicitor could advise on this.

Hope this helps!!!

muskoka

I agree you should be honest about it. We had this problem back in the 90's when we were young and unaware of building regs. We knocked out a supporting wall, installed an rsj without permission. Sold the house about 5 years later and this was queried by the building society/surveyor for the buyers. However, we produced the invoice for the rsj which we had fitted, which indicated size/loadings for this particular rsj and they were happy with that.

phead

My old flat was created by converting a house at about the same time, again without any planning or building regs, didn't present any problems when selling.

Don't lie on any forms, but this far later on maybe you cannot remember what forms etc were filled in? If in doubt ask your solicitor, that's what you are paying them for. Worst case, you will need to get a certificate of lawfulness for the development.

samhuzz

Building Control cannot take any action against you or the buyer of the property if the work has been completed for 18 months or more. However, if you wanted to get a Regularisation Certificate from Building Control they would require details of the steel that was put in also the fire protection to the steel. I work in Building Control and by law we only have to keep files for 15 years, if your Council is the same (don't see why it wouldn't be) they wouldn't have a record of the work if you had applied for building regulations. Extremely unlikely you would need planning permission for the works unless the house was in a Conservation Area or a Listed Building (I worked in Planning before I worked in Building Control). Any other questions about either let me know.

MrsGrey

Thanks to all for your help. I think it is best to come clean. I can rummage for any old info we have about the work that was done, but I doubt we have any technical details. It looks like the worst that could happen is that we scare off anyone nervous and might need to provide indmenity insurance. So will just live with that...

Doozergirl

I would have a word with your solicitor and ask them to purchase indemnity insurance for you - then you can put on the form that a policy has been purchased to cover the future owners. It's damage limitation - as it's often more of an issue for people when their solicitor comes and says 'what do you want to do about this issue' rather than 'there is this, but the vendor has already done this to help you'. It shows willingness on your part rather than trying to hide things.

This comes up all the time - I wouldn't worry too much. After 15 years,the work must have been to some kind of standard. Do not speak to building control - alerting their attention it invalidates any policy and by trying to retrospectively get things approved, if it doesn't pass then you have no way of covering future owners (despite the risk of anything happening being negligable)

planning_officer

You don't need planning permission for internal alterations or just blocking up a window, as they're not 'development'.

(Re. post above from 'Mr Badcrumble': Permitted development is minor development that is automatically granted planning permission under the relevant legislation - if something is not development in the first place, then it's not necessary to consider whether it is permitted development).

Building Regs is a different matter though - see advice from others above.