Can I get Indemnity Insurance for our conservatory ???

shanti_108

We are selling our house and 14 years ago had a small 3m x 4 m conservatory built . I cannot remember if we obtained building regs and if so given an approval of works cert. I was asked to call our local buildings regs office and enquire , which i have done . I have just been told by my solicitor that because i have requested this info from the council and it comes back that we didnt obtain building regs approval and should have done that we will not be able to get any indemnity insurance to cover it for our buyers . is this correct ????

Yorkie1

Yes, it is correct.

The indemnity insurance protects the policy holder from the risk of the council enforcing the breach of B Regs and/or Planning Permission (the latter unlikely to be relevant for a conservatory and, particularly, after this period of time).

Once the council is on notice about the possible construction in breach of the regs, you can no longer insure against the risk of enforcement.

I know that there is a time limit on enforcement of breaches of planning permission; I can't recall whether there is one for breaches of building regulations. Hopefully other posters will be able to clarify.

If your buyer's solicitors insist on this being rectified then the only way to do so, I think, will be to obtain a regularisation certificate from the council - i.e. getting them out now to look at it.

NB. These answers presume:
a) you actually told the council the address and/or details of your property or yourself; and
b) B Regs were in force for the construction at the time.

pmlindyloo

You need to find out whether there was an exemption from Building regulations for conservatories of your size and type at the time it was built.

You could try googling by putting in ' building regulations conservatories and the date it was built'.

Since it is so small there may be a possibility that it didn't require building regulations. However, there may be other stipulations in the criteria that you might need to address. (e.g roofing/windows/doors etc)

If all else fails you could enlist the help of someone from Building Control in your area (since you have already informed them) I have always found them very helpful.

If you do find out that no building regs were needed at the time it might be worth paying a building inspector to write a letter to this effect. (If you can) Solicitors/mortgage lenders are generally not well informed about Building regs and Planning permission.