Yet another spanner in the works... Building regs

papermoney

I am assuming that you need planning permission and building regs for a garage conversion. At the very least building regs?
The house we are buying has neither.
I have spoken to the council who tell me that there has been no planning permission granted and therefore no build regs approval for the house we are buying.
The solicitor has told me that he will have to write to the lender and say that this is not available and he says they will probably request a full structural survey.
We just don't have the money for it.
I hate house buying.

Gold_Shogun

The two are completely seperate matters ...

Planning permission may well have NOT been needed, as it often falls within the "Permitted Development Rights".

Whether or not it needed Building Regs Approval is dependent on the size & construction menthod, so this MAY not have been needed either.

In either case (assuming said garage is not structurally attached to the house itself), then the garage should not impact upon the main house structure ... thus avoiding/minimising the necessity for any "full structural survey"

pinkshoes

papermoney wrote: »

The solicitor has told me that he will have to write to the lender and say that this is not available and he says they will probably request a full structural survey.
We just don't have the money for it.
I hate house buying.

But when buying a house, aren't you meant to have enough savings to cover mortgage payments for at least 6 months should you loose your job/have an accident etc...? So if you can't afford a full structural survey, then maybe you should "re-jiggle" your finances and buy something that's not going to stretch you so much.

I don't wanna sound pessimistic, I just don't like seeing people struggle financially if interest rates rise.

brock-cruse

Hi
I maybe wrong but planning and building regs may not be needed. I think a "change of use" permission comes to mind. Thats all my uncle did when he converted his. Maybe look into that? Hope this helps!

papermoney

Thanks - the garage was internal and i've been on the phone to the coucil and they have agreed that building regs would be needed as it is a change of use.

As for the having money to cover it etc, i'd love to have it but we simply don't I used most of the savings I had to clear off my debts from my previous marriage. If interests rates go up then we can cover it through wages etc.
We have a fixed rate for 5 years anyway but if interest rates hit the roof we would cover it as the mortgage is only based on my earnings not my husbands.

We simply just do not have the money to cover the survey at the min having paid over £500 to NR for a standard one.

papermoney

My solicitor has said that it is possible that the garage conversion may not have needed building permission or building regs but the seller can not provide written confirmation that this is the case.

kodokan

In 2001, we bought a house that had had an internal garage converted into a room. The conversion had been carried out some time in the late 70s, and there was no record of PP or Building Regs approvals.

To the naked eye, the conversion was a thoroughly good job, well finished inside, exterior stonework matching nicely, etc. We had a full survey done on the house anyway (corporate relo), and all it came back with was that current Building Regs stipulates there should be airbricks inserted to ventilate below the suspended floor in what was the garage, but the survey did admit that the floor was in fact completely sound anyway. And Building Regs requirements change over time - maybe the airbricks weren't mandatory then..?

(Most houses built more than 30 years ago wouldn't meet modern BRs anyway, simply on the insulation measures, let alone anything else. All those 200 yr old cottages still seem to be standing, though.)

As far as the paperwork went, the council was quite happy to put in writing to our solicitor that they couldn't care a fig for PP and B Regs after all that time, and would definitely not take any action whatsover.

We sold the house in 2005, and when the buyers' solicitor raised the PP/BR issue, we gave them a copy of the council's response. This satisfied them perfectly, and the sale went through without a hitch.

Moral: lack of paperwork is not a showstopper, or a sign of shoddy work. Have you got a pet builder you can bung £50 to come and look at just the conversion..?

Good luck with your purchase if you go ahead with it!

kodokan

papermoney

Thanks for your reply - it seems the solicitor is taking it out of my hands so to speak. He says he has to inform the lender and seek their instruction.
It just more time.
The conversion was done between 1991 and 1996 but there is no record of planning permission or building regs.

Guess it's just the waiting game...

kodokan

Pish - PP and BRs are unenforceable after that length of time anyway. Obviously that won't stop the mortgage company making you have a full survey anyway, probably in the hope you'll add the cost to the mortgage!

Keep us posted.

kodokan

Richard_Webster

If you are really bothered about construction issues/safety then you need professional reassurance that it is OK and therefore a survey is sensible.

If it is only the legalities, then you shot yourselves in the foot by contacting the Council about it, because a Building Regulation Indemnity Policy could have been offered to solve the problem without consulting the lender. These policies only pay out if there is enforcement action (which is very very unlikely), not if there is a construction problem revealed later, but they are not available if the matter has been discussed with the Council.

Unfortunately lenders are not really geared up to deal with these kinds of queries and when they get them they tend not to understand the "real world" nature of what it is all about, so they either give approval to go ahead or they come up with some impractical time wasting response. It is a complete lottery.

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.

papermoney

Richard_Webster wrote: »

If you are really bothered about construction issues/safety then you need professional reassurance that it is OK and therefore a survey is sensible.

If it is only the legalities, then you shot yourselves in the foot by contacting the Council about it, because a Building Regulation Indemnity Policy could have been offered to solve the problem without consulting the lender. These policies only pay out if there is enforcement action (which is very very unlikely), not if there is a construction problem revealed later, but they are not available if the matter has been discussed with the Council.

Unfortunately lenders are not really geared up to deal with these kinds of queries and when they get them they tend not to understand the "real world" nature of what it is all about, so they either give approval to go ahead or they come up with some impractical time wasting response. It is a complete lottery.

As a conveyancing solicitor I believe the information given in the post to be useful but I accept no liability except to fee-paying clients.

The solicitor had also contacted the LA as he has asked them to put it in writing for the file. The sol then said he would have to forward this on to the mortgage lender for them to make a decision.

We are upto the max of what the mortgage company will actually give us so we can't add it to the mortgage.

The Estate Agent has advised us to start house hunting again, as we seem to be at stalemate.