Indemnity insurance and building regulations

antonywj

Hi,

I am very close to purchasing a new house. The property has a substantial ground floor extension (2006), which has the correct planning approvals but does not appear to have building regulations completion certificate. We are pretty confident about the quality of the work as the surveyor instructed the bank to ask us for a structural engineer to review the property. The structural report has come back fine and the seller is now offering indemnity insurance to compensate for the lack of building regs, which I understand is pretty standard.

My question is this: we are happy to take the insurance but we would also like to undertake some further work on the ground floor extension (two new sets of patio doors, one replacing a window, putting in a utility room and a new internal door) which we would want to seek out the proper approvals for. Would we, by inviting inspectors to review work undertaken in the future, invalidate the indemnity insurance offered by our seller?

Thanks in advance.

timmyt

as a conveyancing solicitor, get the selle rto arrange final inspection.

too recent.

indemnity may preclude further alterations to the same area of work, and it doesn't warrant good buildmanship

Bananamana

antonywj wrote: »

Hi,

My question is this: we are happy to take the insurance but we would also like to undertake some further work on the ground floor extension (two new sets of patio doors, one replacing a window, putting in a utility room and a new internal door) which we would want to seek out the proper approvals for. Would we, by inviting inspectors to review work undertaken in the future, invalidate the indemnity insurance offered by our seller?

Thanks in advance.

In answer to your question - you would need to check the underwriting criteria it will usually say something along the lines of "you have not approached the council in respect of these works".

The enforcement period is 1 year in any event unless the works are unsafe so you should be fine either way.

Although if the seller's are willing I'd just get the final sign off now so it isn't an issue.

digitalj

hi,I bought my house in 2007 new build,in 2009 i tried to sell my house untill my neighbore informed me there was no building regs.
After looking into it,it turns out we moved in without a sound check being carried out to relese building regs.
I contacted the builder who sent a sound engineer to do a test.
i then contacted the council who informed me the test is void becouse the property's need to be empty when tested.
at present my neighbores have complained about there soliciters as they wre hired to make sure all documents were in place,so i followed suiet, my neighbores got there fees back,£1,000 each wich they are useing to sue there soliciters,when i complained i got £150 of wich i wasnt happy,the money doesnt bother me,i just want to no who is to blame and what can be done about it,as my neighbore wont let anybody in to do a sound check so i can sell, untill her case is resolved wich could take a long time.
do i have to, by law, disclose that there is no building regs on my property to a buyer or is it up to there soliciter to work it out.things are tight now, i need to sell, is there a way around this.can anyone help.
thanks

Bananamana

It's buyer beware - but you can't mislead them. If they ask you a question re building regs then you'll need to answer it truthfully or it's misrepresentation. It will come up in correspondence in any event given the recent age of the build.

Why £150? Is that how much it would cost for the council to come out and do the final sign off? If not then find out how much and have the solicitor sort it (depending on the contract/ transfer when you bought it's likely the builder was responsible for getting this sorted).

digitalj

thanks, i dont plan to misslead anyone,its been quite stressfull i wouldnt want to put anyone else throu it.
the £150 was compensation for inconveince ect,ive tried other avenues but keep hitting brick walls.
thanks again

antonywj

Thanks for advice - appreciate it. In two minds have a deadline - need to be in the house for school purposes by August. Anyone have any idea how long it would take them to get regs signed off?