No viewings in a month - "illegal" loft conversion

welshgirl78

Thank you, that was my understanding and as far as I have researched I would buy it to prevent the next (imaginary!) owner from being sued by the council.

As far as I know all the houses in this terrace have the same conversion (we looked round another with the same upstairs room and next door definitely does) They were all classed as rooms. Do you have any advice as to how I could find out more without asking the council?

Thanks again

Ronaldo_Mconaldo

Also, what's the deal with the bathroom, it looks massive compared to any other room in the house. How did that come about?

Kastanie

Hi welshgirl

Are you on speaking terms with your neighbours? Looks like a few of them have dealt with the loft room issue and turned their similar houses into cute 2 beds (check RM "sold prices" for pics!) Might be worth having a chat to get ideas how they went about it?

BTW I'm sure things will pick up a bit now with viewings.... after the past month in which we've had snow, freezing conditions, Easter...more snow....

welshgirl78

Thanks Kastinie, will check that out now - just what I needed. There is only one on our section but they are a 2 bed, with one of the beds being the loft room.

propertyman, no problem! Ronaldo - I know but I was one of the things that sold it to us

silvercar

"Briefly it comprises of a lounge, kitchen/diner, landing, bathroom, loft room and 2 bedrooms".

I would say:

"Briefly it comprises a lounge, kitchen/diner, bathroom, bedroom, 2nd bedroom/ dining room and useful boarded loft space (currently used as 3rd bedroom)."

DannyboyMidlands

As a buyer the biggest disappointment with viewing houses is wasting your time looking at unsuitable stuff.

Yours has waste of time written all over it. It has one bedroom and I think you need to be honest about that. To suggest that you walk through the front door and straight into bedroom 2 is ridiculous.

How much more of the description is lies? Why would I waste my precious weekend viewing that one when there are plenty more fish in the sea?

propertyman

welshgirl78 wrote: »

As far as I know all the houses in this terrace have the same conversion (we looked round another with the same upstairs room and next door definitely does) They were all classed as rooms. Do you have any advice as to how I could find out more without asking the council?

Thanks again

Yes see post 10. For planning and building regs purposes they don't comply but are perfectly useable.

If you can show that the conversion presumably from a loft to a room was done a considerable time ago then planning enforcement and building regulations are time barred ( save that if the stairs are dangerous oir the floor inadequately supported there is no limitation on enforcement action

What you therefore have is an unconventional layout and there is always the risk of a limited brain EA and a strict lender which might queer any sale.

Your solicitor can then arrange an indemnity and arrange for a statutory declaration as to when teh alterations were carried out.

If it were me I would look at putting a door, perhaps a folding door with intumescant strips at the base of the stair so that the privacy and fire exclusion is achieved.

You can always tell the purchaser to do what you did and take them off when they move in its just a trick to get past the survey...

JQ.

It's a 1 bedroom house with a loft room.

Bedroom 2 on the plans is not a bedroom, it's a living room that's being used as an office. There's no way I'd use that room as a bedroom, it's got the front door in it. The lounge on the plans should actually be the dining room.

If the loft room does not have Building Regs then there's no knowing whether it's actually safe to be living up there, it's not just fire issues, but also whether the floor has been properly supported with structural beams. These are issues which should have been picked up by your conveyancer when you bought the house.

I would be immediately put off by the quite obvious attempt to make it look like a 2 bed house, when it's not. I would be thinking what else are you trying to hide?

I would imagine there's 3 ptions -
1. List it as a 1 bed house.
2. Continue to list it as you have, but remove the floor plans - it's those that totally give the game away. But don't be surprised when people view and are confused, but at least you'll get them through the door.
2. Make the loft Building Regs compliant - which could cost the equivalent of doing the conversion from scratch.

propertyman

Just a thought, how about dressing the house by putting the lounge in Bed 2 and the dining table etc in the lounge so that the website pictures shows it in a conventional layout.

The purchaser might be surprised on arrival that its back to "normal", but you simply explain that you have it arranged differently as you need the bedrooms, which is why you are moving

welshgirl78

Ok thank you again, these are all my thoughts too Dannyboy and JQ I completely get your points about "what else are we hiding" but the problem to me arises from the fact we bought it as a 2 bed and all the others are also 2 beds:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detail.html?country=england&locationIdentifier=STREET%5E2463880&searchLocation=Woodborough+Road&columnToSort=ADDRESS&referrer=detailPage&index=100 (numbers 766 to 784)

I am not trying to deceive people (or if I am there are an awful lot of people in on the scam!!)

I guess I would just like to clarify whether this is a usable bedroom (and if not, why are so many houses classed as so) Has there been recent tightenings on building control that may have affected this?

I am grateful for all your comments and it has highlighted to me that I need to get this sorted ASAP.