No building regulations

Woody69_2

I'm in the process of selling my house and the estate agent phoned to say there was a problem as there are no building regulations for the kitchen extension. There's no planning permission either but this apparently is not a problem as the extension was built more than 10 years ago. I have no idea how old the extension is but at least 16 years and could be much older.

This was never mentioned to me when I bought the house 5 years ago. The estate agent is saying the sale can't go through without building regs or an indemnity policy. Surely this can't be true as I and the previous owners managed it. Does anyone have any experience of this?

oldagetraveller

When I sold my last property there was a record of the planning consent but not building regulations for a small side extension. I had to take out an indemnity policy, for the buyer, to cover this. If I recall it was about £70 nearly four years ago. Other than this extra expense it didn't cause any problems or delay in the sale.
Similarly, it didn't crop up during that purchase so I assumed all was well. Someone not doing their job properly at that time?

olly300

Was your kitchen build originally as a kitchen extension or a conservatory? See here: http://www.diydata.com/planning/planregperm/planning_rules.php#conservatories

lush_walrus

It's amazing how often this comes up! The EA is right you will more than likely need an indemnity insurance if you do not have building regs. It sounds as if your solicitor failed to pick up on the fact that there was an extension when you purchased the property, but most solicitors will pick up on it and alert your buyer. Do you have a buyer at the moment?

The thing to realise with construction, is that building regs are in place to ensure that a property is built to UK standards, so is a guarantee if you like for the standard of workmanship at the time of construction in terms of insulation levels, drainage, structure etc. Without the approval of building regs and in particular their final sign off the construction could be completely poor or even dangerous for all the next person buying knows.

The insurance is a safety guard for them, in that if they are covered by insurance if anything goes wrong with it, they will be covered.

It really is the only option unless you find very gunhoe buyers or slack solicitors, unlike planning you can not get building regs approval in retrospect.

Woody69_2

Thanks I'm going to get an indemnity policy. I was expecting it to be more expensive but its only £37. Did I mention my last solicitor was struck off for bad practice.

paulpa66

Woody69 wrote: »

Thanks I'm going to get an indemnity policy. I was expecting it to be more expensive but its only £37. Did I mention my last solicitor was struck off for bad practice.

where did you get this from, as i need it too. Do you have a web link please.
Paul

IainCMartin

I believe that solicitors are being more canny over this in recent years.

We have an extension that I have the pp approval on, done about 20 years ago, but no building regs approval certificate and expect to be asked the same. I am tempted to use my original solicitor for the conveyancing so that if the issue comes up I can ask him why he didn't get us this 8 years ago.

Woody69_2

My solicitor got the indemnity for me, I believe you can only get them through your solicitor but I know it was bought from countrywide