Building Regs Problem

babs

Showed this response to hubby again and his response is as follows.

He catagorically states this is wrong, if this was challenged in a magistrates court the magistrate will grant in grant in favour of the applicant.

The builders will have being following a plan that was approved at that time and all work will need to be carried out to that standard.

He states in your case - the fire door has ALWAYS been a requirement at least since 1985 (new approved documents). And the roof support will probably has been the same - it needs to be structually stable.

He thinks that in this instance, they look like they have asked for changes because they were a requirement at the time and either weren't done or were done inadequately done in the first place. Another reason could have been that all though plans were submitted you never told the council work had started (there is a 3 year time limit on this).

For the record. we have been doing an extension to our house for the last 6 years and have yet to apply for the final certificate. Since this time Thermal insulation has changed and electrical requirments have changed, but as our plans state the current requirements at the time - we don't have to start pulling everything out and redoing them, even if it takes another 10 years to finish!

Hope that clarifys things a bit more.

porthenys

Our sewage pipe passes under a neighbour's drive and we have been asked to take out a lack of easement pokicy which is apparently a form of idemnity insurance.
Does anyone know of any companies that issue this type of policy?

forevergrey

Babs - one or two people in reply to my original post have stated that one option that may have been open to us, an indemnity policy, is no longer available because the EA has made the LA building control aware of this.

Can your hubby confirm whether a telephone call is enough to trigger the invalidity of taking out an indemnity or whether it would have to be in writing?

silvercar

Babs, thanks for the response, as it happens it was our sellers who had to sought this out before we exchanged. I don't really understand why they didn't comply with the original instructions as the plans were drawn up in 2004 and the work completed in 2006. It may be that they had no intention of selling and told their builder to do things safely but cut out unnecessary work to save money. When they did then sell, earlier than they may have originally anticipated, they had to go back and do what was necessary for the certificates. Whatever, we now have a house that has building regs sign off.

porthenys, your solicitor will know who issues these policies and can arrange cover for you.

babs

As far as indemity insurances are concerned what Silver Car says is right - basically these are all but useless. They cover Planning for 4 years and Building control for a year.

Apart from that - he knows very little about them and he personally has never had to deal with one of these being enforced in his career so far (20 years).