Conservatory building regs

DeeDee08_2

Hi All,

Seen a house I really like, but there's no door between the kitchen and conservatory - which currently acts as a dining room. I've heard that's against building regs?
When would this be a problem, I assume at survey for mortgage? Then what happens, is onus on vendor or buyer to remedy the problem.

The space works really well and I know it has heating implications, but doors would spoil the effect of the room.

Any advice?
Cheers

liubeliu

My understanding is that it is now deemed an extension and therefore retrospective planning permission may be required. Also have they fitted central heating? Some local authorities have diffrenet views on central heating in conservatories etc.

How old has conservatory been up? might have an impact on whether building regs are enforceable.

We bought a house which had this and bulding control required either an external grade door installing or retrospective planning permission and if successful a regularisation certificate obtained (think that's what they said). The vendor got its dates wrong and was then excempt from enforcement, think the period back in 2003 was 10 years. If we had to go through the latter it would have been a deal breaker.

tyler80

It is unlikely that the vendor could remedy the problem without putting the external doors back on.

Our rented house had the same situation and when the landlords were selling they asked us to remove the door we'd put back on whilst they were selling. I told them we'd do it if they were willing to make a contribution to our heating bill! (it was February)

Our landlords then tried to tell us we were in breach of our tenancy agreement so I made some enquiries. The set up did not meet building regulations and could never be brought up to spec retrospectively short of knocking the whole thing down and starting again.

kkgree1

We had exactly the same issue when we bought our house last year. The consevatory/extension was built in 2004 and was signed off by building regs in 2007. It's basically one long kitchen/diner/conservatory. There is central heating in there but it still gets cold in winter and we have been looking at the possibility of putting double doors between the kitchen & consevatory to keep the heat in.

I wouldn't be worried as long as the existing owners can provide all the relevant paperwork showing the planning permission and buildings regulations sign off.

puddleduck

We had the same issue. When buying the house in 2007, our solicitor didn't spot it and we didn't know it was a potential problem. The conservatory was built 10 years ago, but the plans have the doors (and window) included, whereas our sellers must have removed them after the builders had left. Our sellers stated on our paperwork that building regs were not required.

When we sold earlier this year, our buyer's solicitor did pick up on it. However our buyer was getting impatient and instructed the solicitor to exchange contracts with us anyway. They told us about it not complying with building regs between exchange and completion and we discussed how it could have been resolved by us putting in external doors and new window (with appropriate regs approval itself!) or by the buyers or us taking out an indemnity policy (which is what the solicitor had suggested to them, and they'd decided against).

Neither our original survey or our buyer's survey mentioned it as an issue.

From Googling there was something saying that if the non-compliant work had been done more than a certain number of years ago it wouldn't matter anyway; and also that it would only be likely to be a problem if the householder applied for building regs for something else (e.g. a new extension or garage conversion) in the property and then the inspector would notice the conservatory issue and refuse to sign the new building regs until the non-compliant stuff also complied - but this info was from forums and not from any official documentation so no idea how true it is.