25 year old Extension permission letter required

chesneyoctopus

Richard_Webster wrote: »

Not the same kind of indemnity as mentioned in the post starting this thread.

If there is a covenant in favour of Wilcon Homes requiring their consent for an extension and the extension is 25 years old, then it is too late for any enforcement to take place because of a case called Hepworth v Pickles so you don't need a restrictive covenant indemnity policy.

Most "tick box" conveyancing factories will back down on requests for indemnity policies if you quote actual law to them! Most of the time, the policies requested are unnecessary, and the only beneficiaries are the insurance company, who receives a premium for a policy on which no claim will ever be made, and the conveyancing factory, who will have hidden in their terms and conditions a provision for charging an extra fee for prepaing the policy!

Richard_Webster

Most "tick box" conveyancing factories will back down on requests for indemnity policies if you quote actual law to them! Most of the time, the policies requested are unnecessary, and the only beneficiaries are the insurance company, who receives a premium for a policy on which no claim will ever be made, and the conveyancing factory, who will have hidden in their terms and conditions a provision for charging an extra fee for prepaing the policy!

In this particular case a policy shouldn't be needed, but I think Chesneyoctopus is being unfair. It isn't the solicitors.

Most of the time it is the lenders who want all the angles covered. In some cases. particularly concerning Building Regulations, you can explain the tiny level of risk involved and the buyer client may well say they are not worried.

However we can't get lenders to say things like that - they just don't have staff who deal with us that understand the issues. Conveyancing would grind to a halt nationally if we had to wait for lenders to to confirm that we didn't have to bother with a policy in this case or that case.

It would be very helpful if all the major lenders said that we did not need to check for building regulation compliance in respect of work that was more than 10 years old. Halifax, for instance, does not limit its "requirements in terms of time for building regulation consents." Nationwide BS is a bit more sensible on this and only wants us to go back 10 yaers.

So the 1960s single story bathroom extension to a Victorian terrace has to be checked and a policy requested if the sellers cannot produce the consents. Perhaps Chesneyoctopus would like to ask Halifax whether they really mean this kind of idiocy? Frankly I haven't got the time but I don't want to be sued by Halifax for not doing things the stupid way they require.

chesneyoctopus

Fair comment Richard - I am just being provocative!

Richard_Webster

Thank you for that comment Chesney - I wondered if I was being a bit rude to you!