Buying house with illegal extension?

minipharm

would appreciate the board's thoughts on this latest depressing twist in our house purchase...

we've had an offer accepted on a house and the conveyancing is underway. today our solicitor told me that the local searches had turned up "miscellaneous contraventions" and "unauthorised work on a small single story rear extension"

we knew the property had been extended in 1983 and the vendor told us that her husband (a joiner, now deceased) had done the work.

she has found a letter dated 1982 that shows they paid a company (now long defunct) to do the building regs/planning application, so it appears it was the fault of that company for not filing it properly, rather than any deception or illegality on the vendor's part.

our solicitor has advised that the only option now is for the vendor to apply for retrospective planning/buildings reg permission. apparently our mortgage lender will not sanction the mortgage without this.

indemnity insurance is not an option because the issue is already in the public record.

does anyone have any experience of something like this and is our solicitor correct that there is no possible way around this, bar the retrospective sign-off?

the problem for us is that this could take months and we need to complete by 8 august to keep our current (excellent) mortgage deal.

any thoughts or advice most welcome!

silvercar

1983! No council could take action. I wouldn't worry about PP, though I would want a proper survey to assess the standard of the work.

jbainbridge

Seriously ... don't worry about it. We bought our house under similar circumstances. After speaking to the council they wrote us a letter saying that as the extension was more than 12 months old they would only take action if there were safety issues. Our surveyor assured us there were no problems.

Speak to the council planning dept, perhaps they can send you a letter to satisfy your solicitor.

minipharm

we've had a HomeBuyer Survey that found no serious safety/building concerns. we are not worried. the problem is that we are buying with a mortgage and according to our solicitor Santander will not sign off the mortgage if they know about the contraventions (standard lending criteria apparently). he also he that he is obliged to pass the information on as he is also acting for them.

DVardysShadow

Put it back into the vendor's court. Vendor's solicitor to write to the council and get suitable assurances about non-action. Don't do this yourself, as it is not your property to get involved with.

As for getting it all sorted by 8th August to keep your mortgage deal, look for other properties or accept that you may lose your deal. There will always be another deal

Fuzzyness

its more than 4 years since the breach of planning control occured. if you're worried you can apply for a certifcate of lawfulness of existing use but quite frankly i wouldnt bother. the council arent going to tell you to knock it down.

MobileSaver

Everyone seems to be mis-reading what the OP said... the issue is that the lender won't offer a mortgage without proper paperwork, not that the OP is worried about having to knock the extension down.

I'd get a letter from the council confirming they won't take any action after so long and a report from a surveyor confirming the extension is structurally sound and see if that is enough to persuade Santander to lend.

DVardysShadow

MobileSaver wrote: »

Everyone seems to be mis-reading what the OP said... the issue is that the lender won't offer a mortgage without proper paperwork, not that the OP is worried about having to knock the extension down.

I'd get a letter from the council confirming they won't take any action after so long and a report from a surveyor confirming the extension is structurally sound and see if that is enough to persuade Santander to lend.

I am not misreading it. I believe that it is the vendor's job to get the required letter. The issue is actually a conflation of the separate issues of the lender not lending and the risk of the council knocking the house down. The lender is not lending because they believe that there is a risk of the house being knocked down or, on repo, of the house being unsaleable because of this risk being perceived.

Buyer should not get involved in asking the council for assurances as the risk is not so much a refusal as a bland non committal response which does not address the issue, rendering the mortgage impossible. This effectively blights the vendor's property - which you do not want to be responsible for as buyer.

hazyjo

They can usually extend mortgage deals with enough notice. We had to do ours by a month, but got the impression they'd have gone a bit longer.

Jx

Fuzzyness

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Buyer should not get involved in asking the council for assurances as the risk is not so much a refusal as a bland non committal response which does not address the issue, rendering the mortgage impossible. This effectively blights the vendor's property - which you do not want to be responsible for as buyer.

the only way that the council is going to confirm that they will be no come back is the owner/prospective purchaser applies for a certifciate of lawfulness of existing use. takes 8 weeks to get a decision and would attract a fee of £150 to accompany the application.