Extensions with no building regs approval - advice please

suebfg

Have now established that a house we are in the process of buying has no building regs approvals for a loft conversion and an open plan conservatory.

Just looking for advice really. How would you address this?

casperlarue

This issue has come up more and more lately.....

The conservatory first, by "open plan" I assume you mean the original outside doors have been removed. To comply with regs you have to have a lockable outside door between the house and the conservatory, ie french doors or patio doors. Reinstate the door and you are compliant.

The loft conversion is more tricky, was it done by the vendor or before their time? If so, do they have any paperwork from the builder who did the work? Any specification to say what was put in the roof in terms of increasing loadbearing capacity of the floor, insulation, fire protection? What I'm getting at is was this conversion done properly or "on the back of a fag packet"

If the vendors have no paperwork to prove the loft conversion was built to the building regs in force at the time and they are not prepared to do anything to provide that proof ..... then in your position I'd be walking away

suebfg

Thanks, yes we are less concerned about the conservatory although we like the open feel as it is. It is a concern from a heating bill perspective though.

The loft conversion was done before the vendors' time but our surveyor indicated that some of the works were amateurish. So it isn't boding well. Apparently he could see evidence of an RSJ beam but it's worrying me that this sort of work was done without the proper approvals.

Johnandabby

If it's worrying you, and the vendors don't have or want to get the paperwork sorted out, then walk away.

bigchrissyg

If its any comfort to you, we walked away from a similar situation. Two loft rooms advertised as bedrooms. Without regs then the value is lost. Deduct those bedrooms from your offer. In our case the vendor wouldnt have it, so we said bye bye. Hard to do. But found a much better house after a while

Our rstionale wasnt to try and get money off because we were late in the process but our legal advise is more lenders are asking for such documents. Therefore when you sell it, you dont want to be loosing out in a more restrictive environment

Good luck, and ignore estate agents who try to fob you off and say things like "i brought one without regs"

giraffe69

You can cover the lack of regulations approval with an indemnity policy which is quite cheap. You might expect the seller to pay for this but it only covers against the council seeking to enforce the lack of regulations and costs arising from this. It wouldn't cover you for bad workmanship and problems arising from this so if you proceed then getting advice in the form of a survey would be critical.

This might all end up sounding like more trouble than it is worth unless either you very much like the house or the seller is prepared to be accommodating about the price.

bclark

Just to clarify something about the open plan conservatory you don't need double doors etc to comply with the building regulations, you need them to be exempt.

suebfg

Sorry don't quite understand. Can you explain further please, thanks

kkgree1

Can I also add that it depends when the conservatory was built - ours is open plan but was built in 2004 so before the building regs changed to say that you need double doors in place.

However, we're looking at getting bi-fold doors installed as it is just not practical for the winter months!

bclark

suebfg wrote: »

Sorry don't quite understand. Can you explain further please, thanks

Well the often quoted rules about Conservatorys having to have external quality doors seperating it from the house and having a separate heating system are often confused as being needed to comply with building regs. This is not actually the case as these are actually requirements to make a conservatory exempt from building regs, it is still possible to comply with building regs despite not having these things.

suebfg

Thanks. We don't think the conservatory would be exempt from the regs. It is a standard conservatory - no special roof etc etc.

The loft conversion is of greatest concern. We have asked that the vendors obtain approvals retrospectively but we think they will decline to do tis, in which case we will sadly have to walk away.