Build regs for Temp room

fivepound

Hi,
I built a study from part of my garage about 7 years ago. About to sell now and just want to confirm what regs if any it should have. As the room has been up for 7 years I believe no permisson is required is this right? Also there is a fire door from the kitchen to the study but a normal door from the study into whats left of the garage (now used as a store) is this OK?

marybishop

It's possibly a case that as you didn't get B Regs for it it can't be classed as a habitable room and therefore the agent probably shouldn't market it as such. Probably depends what the B Regs stipulated at the time you did the work but would think insulation might be a problem. If you phoned Building Control they might ask for more details could put you in an awkward situation unless you're able to make it a generalised question.

BobProperty

fivepound wrote: »

Hi,
I built a study from part of my garage about 7 years ago. About to sell now and just want to confirm what regs if any it should have. As the room has been up for 7 years I believe no permisson is required is this right? Also there is a fire door from the kitchen to the study but a normal door from the study into whats left of the garage (now used as a store) is this OK?

I think the technicality is that you are not likely to be prosecuted for it. Breaches of that age would only be a problem if the property was listed IMHO.

Go with marybishop and get the EA to word it carefully. I think, for instance, that "whats left of the garage" is still a garage and should have a 1 hour fire door if your study were to count as a habitable room and part of the house.

silvercar

to satisfy regulations, you probably need to move the fire door to between the study and the garage. but it would probably fail on other issues like the original walls being too thin (garages were usually built as single skin) and insufficent insulation. Also the roof material is probably inadequate.

We recently bought a house with a garage inadequately transformed into a room. the surveyor commented on this, but it didn't stop the room being described as a room.

richardbeatson

You will need a building regulation certificate. The vendor has every right to ask for one. If you have formed a 'habitable' room then you will need to heat it, ventilate it, protect it against fire, insulate it etc, etc. You can get insurance to protect the future vendor against this which might be a good idea. You're right about the 6 year rule for planning though. You just need to be able to provide evidence.

kazd

We had an integrated garage in our old house, the door from the kitchen to the garage was a regulation fire door installed by the builders. All we did was partition the garage off, the front remained as storage and retained the garage up and over door ie it did not have door removed and window put in. The rear was carpeted and painted, we put a heater on the wall and initially intended to use it as a study but ultimately shelved it and used it as a toy room and place for coats and shoes etc. We had no problems when we sold it we did not require any certification. I think we did fill out a form and advised the council but did not have any form of certification. It was a stud partition wall that could be easily removed should the new vendor decide to turn it back into a garage.

By the way the door from the playroom side to storage side was just a regular internal type door.