Indemnity insurance

traineepensioner

Hi

hope you can help me out again...
Is it possible to get indemnity insurance for an extension, allegedly built in 1976, that would protect my losses if I apply for building consent for additional work?

I'm in the process of buying a house, with a 3m X 3M extension which doesn't appear to have planning permission or building consent. Eventually I will need to notify BC that I want to extend the kitchen which will connect with the existing extension.

As far as I know my options are::think:

(1) Insist that the seller gets the required permissions in place prior to the sale. - This is probably a non starter as the extension, although well built and fault free, would not pass the latest building reg's without being rebuilt.

(2) Request that the seller purchase adequate indemnity insurance...enough to protect me if the building inspector insists that significant changes are made to the existing extension during the additional work.

(3) Re-negotiate the price. - I offered the full (quite low) asking price based on the condition of the house.

Many thanks for your advice or suggestions.:beer:

Tr1pp

i would suggest you get the vendors to take out indemnity insurance to cover any costs that may be incured IF you have to pull the extansion down when asking for retrospective permission.

I had the same thing happen, a few things had been done in the leasehold i have which had not been given permission for. It was unlikley that i would have had to change them BUT it was a condition i made sure that the vendor had indemnity insurance to cover the cost if I had to make alterations. the vendor opted to just legally agree that they would pay for any costs incured rather than get the insurance but I made sure there was something in writing and legally binding.

Indemnity insurance is pretty cheap so i cant imagine it will be a huge snag for the vendor if they want to sell BUT make sure they have it before you exchange. useful to have it even though its unlikely you will have to remove it when applying for retrospective permission.

traineepensioner

Hi Tr1pp,

Many thanks for the reply.

I'm not looking to get retrospective planning permission as the total size of my proposed extension (including existing) is within "permissible development" limits. It's just the building control I'm concerned about, particularly the foundations. The house foundations are very deep but I don't know how deep the extension foundations are

An interesting idea to get the vendor to agree to pay for costs. I think I would insist on the indemnity insurance though....knowing my luck I probably wouldn't be able to find the vendor again.

Thanks again.