What will happen?

Dasnookster

I am going through the house buying process, I thought we were nearly at the point of exchange, but now our solicitor has written to us with a copy letter she has sent to the people we are buying from's solicitors, asking them for information.

Basically there are a couple of parts of walls that have been taken down within the property and they are asking for Building Regulations and completion certificates for the work done. What happens if they don't have the relevant paperwork?

casperlarue

I'm assuming that the walls were loadbearing walls which is why your solicitor is asking for a building regs certificate. The point of this is to ensure the wall above is supported with a steel or concrete beam and the work was done to the building inspectors satisfaction.

Personally, I wouldn't bee too hapy buying a house that has had strcutural alterations done without the relevant paperwork in place.

Dasnookster

If they don't have the paperwork I wondered what would happen, can they get someone to come and see it now to see if its structurally ok? or is there more to it than that?

BobProperty

Dasnookster wrote:

If they don't have the paperwork I wondered what would happen, can they get someone to come and see it now to see if its structurally ok? or is there more to it than that?

This isn't unheard of. They can get a structural engineer in to check the situation, do the calculations and get retrospective Building Regulation approval which regularises the situation.

Dasnookster

I don't suppose you have any idea of how long that would take?

BobProperty

Sorry, no, because one, I've never been involved in it being done and two, I suspect it very much depends on what the engineer finds and how fast the paperwork can be sorted.
That is assuming what is currently there is OK. The two other scenarios are that there is no need for any approval because the walls aren't structural at all and, the worst case, the walls were structural and what is in there at present isn't sufficient to do the job.

Dasnookster

Thanks for your help. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed that they have the paperwork. I seem to have loads of people telling me they won't because they have been living there many years and apparently you never used to need all the paperwork you do nowadays? I don't know if thats true or not?

JennyW_2

casperlarue wrote:

I'm assuming that the walls were loadbearing walls which is why your solicitor is asking for a building regs certificate. The point of this is to ensure the wall above is supported with a steel or concrete beam and the work was done to the building inspectors satisfaction.

Personally, I wouldn't bee too hapy buying a house that has had strcutural alterations done without the relevant paperwork in place.

if it is a supporting wall they will probably want to check that the supporting beam is adequate (ie depth and length) and that it's supported on suitable engineering bricks. We have recently just removed an internal supporting wall and the building inspector wanted to see the beam/supporting bricks before it was made good and plastered over

silvercar

if you call in the building inspectorate from your townhall they only require 48 hours notice. The danger of this is that you can't then take out indemnity insurance. for structural removal you do want to make sure that the upstairs is supported.

BobProperty

silvercar wrote:

if you call in the building inspectorate from your townhall they only require 48 hours notice. The danger of this is that you can't then take out indemnity insurance. for structural removal you do want to make sure that the upstairs is supported.

It isn't the OP's house yet :eek: Vendor isn't going to be happy if Building Inspector turns up on the doorstep before their letter explaining the situation has been received by the OP's solicitor.