Loft conversion - no building regs

hwizz

Hi,

We are in the process of buying a property and have just found out that the loft conversion has no building regs. We have been advised that a possible reason for this is that there is no steel support in the floors and I was wondering how much it would cost to put support in and how difficult a job it would be.

Has anyone any experience with this?

Thanks

Jenniefour

This happened with the previous owners of my property. When they bought it they had hoped that the loft conversion could easily be brought up to standard re building regs by having one or two bits of work done. Unfortunately, they had to rip out everything, including the staircase, as none of the work was compliant with building regs. Including no steel supports. Essentially, it was a bodge job. So it ended up costing them about the same as starting from scratch.

It also depends, to some extent, how long ago the loft conversion was done. A friend bought a property where the loft was converted forty years previously, by a good builder and to a very good standard, and it was fine. It had been done to the best standards of the time (and had the all important proper supports in) but it wouldn't have passed today's standards in all respects.

Given that the property you are buying probably has no supports in it then safer to assume it all needs re-doing. And if that's the case then you need to make sure you are not paying for that attic as a bedroom because it would not be classed as habitable space - so it can't be sold as such. Sometimes enthusiatic DIY'ers have a go at big building jobs like this. Board over the loft,put in some Velux windows and a staircase. That doesn't make it into proper habitable space, even it looks as though it is. So do make sure you aren't paying for that 'extra' bedroom.