Would you buy a house with no building regs?

andybranford

Hi All,

Ive found a property that i quite like the look of but the only trouble is im suspecting that the ground floor converted garage and the rest of the refurbished property might not have building regs. The estate agents are been very sheepish about it (giving me answers like he thinks he has building regs?) and i dont trust anything they tell me, plus i dont seem to be getting any answers out of the vendor iether!

The last thing i want is to get to the end of the transaction and my solicitor turns round to me saying that they will offer me indemnity insurance (which to be honest i wouldnt be happy with)

Its a terraced house and im pretty sure that if there was a fire the insurance company wouldnt pay out causing me 1000's of pounds worth of damage!!

Its very high risk to take on but is there a way around this?

G_M

How long ago were the conversions done?

Have you had a survey done?

societys_child

Its very high risk to take on but is there a way around this?

Well yeah, if your so worried, don't get involved.

Fire_Fox

Welcome! If you want to submit an offer do so by letter or e-mail clearly stating the conditions of your offer, you want confirmation of building regs before you proceed with legals. You might also telephone Planning at the local council see if they can tell you anything.

andybranford

I think the conversion was done about 3 years ago so quite recent. I havnt had a survey done as im not sure if i should spend the money on it?

Will no buidling regs effect my insurance policy?

Fire_Fox

Why don't you try to establish if there is building regs before worrying about what happens later down the line?

Thrugelmir

andybranford wrote: »

Will no buidling regs effect my insurance policy?

Garage conversion may have been done on the cheap. Walk away if it has.

Lavendyr

First things first - find out if they did get building regs sign-off (from the seller).

If they didn't - you need to find out whether you can a) get building regs retrospective sign-off (a regularisation or completion certificate) from the council and b) whether any rectification work would be required in order to achieve this and if so, the extent of the work required. This would involve speaking to the council.

Note that once you open communications with the council in this regard you will not be able to get indemnity insurance as you have alerted the council. However, you said you don't really want to take out indemnity insurance so your best bet may be to look into what would be required to get retrospective approval. This would get rid of future issues around resale as well.

Obviously if it's a massive job to rectify and bring up to scratch - that might suggest it's a good idea to walk away!

Yorkie1

Others have rightly said that if the council is contacted, an indemnity policy cannot be obtained.

If the seller isn't forthcoming about either the existence of B Regs, or is forthcoming about that but not about how to rectify their absence, then I would walk. I wouldn't take it upon myself to contact the council. That means that nobody else can agree a purchase based on an indemnity policy.

Thrugelmir

If there's no building regs the property will be worth considerably less.

andybranford

Thanks for all your info.

One thing i do know is the property was on the market some time ago, then came off for a bit, then came back on! So maybe someone else couldnt get finance due to this problem?

My next question is how do i know that someone else hasnt contacted the council before me, and alerted them about no buidling regs? This would cause me a problem for insurance wouldnt it?