Loft room

downshifted

We are looking at a property with what is advertised as an "attic room" rather than a fourth bedroom although it is obvious that someone has have been sleeping in it.

Is it possible to check that any necessary consents were obtained before making an offer? It is a middle terrace, it has a door on the first floor behind which there are with narrow stairs leading up to the attic room - one large room with velux windows. It doesn't look like a fire door, just an ordinary pine one.

Thanks

tim123456789

almost certainty if it's described as an "attic room" it doesn't have any permissions

tim

ognum

As above, if it had thee consents it would be described as a forth bedroom and the price of the house would reflect this!

you need to accept it does not have consent and decide if you want a house without the requires consents which of course will be more difficult to sell in the future!

just another note of caution, building consent is there for a reason, mainly saftey both to the occupants and to the structure of the property. It is expensive to have all the required hard wired smoke alarms, fire doors etc but they are required for a reason and could save your child's life!

Yorkie1

Do not ask the council direct, but you could search their online portal to see whether any consents had been sought / granted.

As ognum writes, you will have no way of knowing whether they have done it properly. Loft joists are not designed to take the weight of people and furniture - they are less strong, and have to be strengthened. Insulation may not have been done properly. The fire escape may not be adequate.

You may be offered an indemnity insurance policy, which protects you against the cost of council enforcement. However, it does not ensure the structural safety or provide funds to rectify this if it proves inadequate.

Dan-Dan

Sorry to hijack , Yorkie , i was (god knows why) watching one of those awful Phil Spencer , Secret Agent `episodes` , yesterday , and a couple on that had a `attic room` and were using it as a bedroom , Spencer was advising them to either get the council to retro inspect , or just pay for an indemnity , "it`s only about £50 quid" ,i didnt understand this , the way he was selling that idea , honestly made it sound that any potential buyers would be covered , but covered for what , he was suitably wooly about, just kept saying , tell people there is a room that is big enough to use for what you need , wink wink

What matters ,i would have thought , is that the are is SAFE for sleeping in , especially as familys were the target market so likely that kid/s would have been up there

What good is an indemnity in these circumstances , why would the council want to take action ?!

Mallotum_X

We have an "attic" room, but treat it purely for storage. It is being sold that way as they (almost certainly) don't have consents in place. We keep toying with the idea of converting ours into a room as what has been done shows what would be possible.

I wouldn't want to use ours as a bedroom unless it was converted properly.

downshifted

Estate Agent says it was done before previous owners moved in, they have mortgaged and remortgaged while they have had it with no problem. It has been rented out with no problem. However it does not have building regs and it seems likely that surveys were only homeowner or valuation type, not full surveys. We have walked away. Thanks for all your help

Yorkie1

downshifted wrote: »

Estate Agent says it was done before previous owners moved in, they have mortgaged and remortgaged while they have had it with no problem. It has been rented out with no problem. However it does not have building regs and it seems likely that surveys were only homeowner or valuation type, not full surveys. We have walked away. Thanks for all your help

Just for the sake of anyone reading this thread in the future, I suspect that even a full survey wouldn't have confirmed its safety or otherwise - general opinion on here is that the survey would need to be intrusive (floorboards up, holes in walls perhaps) to confirm this one way or the other. And even a full survey doesn't do this.

abankerbutnotafatcat

My personal view is that there lots of features of houses that wouldn't meet current building regs. We bought a property with a non-compliant loft conversion but only paid for what it would be worth without it so basically view it as a boarded over loft with light, heat and power which is rather useful. I believe our loft was 'converted' in the '80s or '90s, certainly it was well-established when our vendor bought. We had a full structural survey when we bought but, as said, he didn't lift carpets but equally didn't raise any concerns about using the space and he certainly caveated his comments when he felt it was necessary!