Can this room be classed as a bedroom?

seven-day-weekend

Sorry if this has been asked before (or even if I've asked it) but can't seem to find anything that covers the circumstances.

Bit of history.

My house was built, as a small and narrow detached, in 1857. In 1895, other houses were joined onto it on both sides, turning it into a mid-terraced.

We have a room on the second floor that I think is original (no details of any rooms given on the deeds). It has a proper staircase to it. When we had it replastered a couple of years ago, we could see the frame of what was obviously the original window to the side, but which has been bricked up since the other houses were joined on. It has a small replacement velux window in the north roof slope and a larger one (which we installed in the refurbishment, there was nothing there before) on the other. The stairs come directly onto the room.

We have owned this house since 1976 and have always used the room, either as a bedroom or a hobbies room.

MY question is, can my room be classed as a bedroom, seeing as it is probably original, or will it have to meet any sort of building regulations to be classified thus?

Your opinions valued, thanks .

(also posted on 'In My Home')

sammyjammy

Not sure if my opinion means much but I don't see why it wouldn't be if it has a proper staircase. Where you thinking it might not because it has no windows in the walls because that doesn't matter.

seven-day-weekend

sammyjammy wrote: »

Not sure if my opinion means much but I don't see why it wouldn't be if it has a proper staircase. Where you thinking it might not because it has no windows in the walls because that doesn't matter.

I was thinking more that new loft conversions have to meet certain Building Regs, so would this one have to meet any? Were there any in 1857??? Does it have to meet any more recent ones?

I know the window issue is not necessarily a problem.

Thanks for your comments.

CLAPTON

when you say 'classified' as a bedroom to whom are you classifying it?


are you proposing to sell?

if it is original then in general there will be no problems even if it doesn't meet modern standard (like several million older style properties)

vivatifosi

My parents have a house in a row of Victorian properties. All have attic rooms. There was work done to my parents house and the one next door that boarded these up and turned them into lofts.

All of the neighbours whose houses were never converted are ok as they meet rules.

My parents can call theirs a bedroom because it was converted back prior to building regs.

My parents neighbour is not even allowed under current regs to convert theirs, even though every other house in street is the same.

It's all about when they were built or converted and sounds as though yours is ok.

drdpj

As far as I'm aware, things only have to meet the regulations in force when they were done! If you got a modern loft conversion "regularised", that is a retrospective completion certificate issued for it, and the conversion was done in 1998, they'd use the regulations in force in 1998 to check it against, not the ones from 2014...

You can't regularise something from before November 1985, so if it's a usable room and has been for more than 100 years, I really don't think there's anything to worry about

d.

seven-day-weekend

Yay! Thanks all! We are not thinking of selling our house yet, but might in the future. It's just that I hear of so many attic rooms not being classed as bedrooms, I thought I'd just ask.

I've since rung building control and they said the same.

So, it's a three bedroomed house, not two and a loft.

AdrianC

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Yay! Thanks all! We are not thinking of selling our house yet, but might in the future. It's just that I hear of so many attic rooms not being classed as bedrooms, I thought I'd just ask.

I've since rung building control and they said the same.

So, it's a three bedroomed house, not two and a loft.

It's not a question of whether it's a bedroom, more a question of whether it's a room at all, part of the habitable space of the house. Any room can be become a bedroom if you put a bed in it.

Attic space has to conform to different building regs to habitable internal space.

Why _is_ the UK so heavily focussed on the number of bedrooms...? Every other country looks at the floor area...

seven-day-weekend

AdrianC wrote: »

It's not a question of whether it's a bedroom, more a question of whether it's a room at all, part of the habitable space of the house. Any room can be become a bedroom if you put a bed in it.

Attic space has to conform to different building regs to habitable internal space.

Why _is_ the UK so heavily focussed on the number of bedrooms...? Every other country looks at the floor area...

So does it have to conform to any regulations to be habitable space?

Idiophreak

AdrianC wrote: »

It's not a question of whether it's a bedroom, more a question of whether it's a room at all, part of the habitable space of the house. Any room can be become a bedroom if you put a bed in it.

Attic space has to conform to different building regs to habitable internal space.

Why _is_ the UK so heavily focussed on the number of bedrooms...? Every other country looks at the floor area...

I think it's generally because the UK has traditionally built houses that are all just the same. Poxy little bedrooms crammed in awkwardly with only as much space downstairs to fit the bedrooms on top of...So people know how big a 2up-2down will be...they know how big a 3 bed, 4 bed will be. Don't need the square footage to visualise it.

There's not really such a thing as a "large" 4 bedroom house in this country, because if there was space for 4 large bedrooms, they'd cram a fifth bedroom in...

AdrianC

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

So does it have to conform to any regulations to be habitable space?

Yes.
http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/loftconversion/