Buying a house with no building regs

robbrewer

Hi,

We are FTB and just looking for some advice. Have read a number of posts on here, but thought I would explain the situation as everyone is slightly different.

We are buying a property which has a loft conversion and also extension at the rear. The first time we looked round, the estate agent told us the first thing they checked was he had all relevant planning permission and building regs certificates.

Our solicters since found he has none, He states he does not need planning for the rear extension, and the loft room is a 'playroom' (although advertised by the agent as 'Bedroom 3'!!). He has not met building regs in this room at all. He has poorly installed a velux window, which looks to leak, and the 'walls' are uninsulated plasterboard on a few upright studs.


We also noticed the ground floor dining room has had the chimney breast completely removed, yet the rest of the stack is still there. No idea if this is supported, or if the Vendor even did this himself. If he did I doubt it meets building regs.

The survey came back and picked up a number of issues. Seems the vendor is a builder and did alot of work himself, but bodged it, it looks like alot of the wiring in the extended parts of the house is done by himself, and im sure would need checking and probably re-wiring.

Are we in a strong position to get him to do this work before we complete? Or to drop our offer price?
We will soon be going back to the property and get somene to give us a quote on bringing it up to regs, and the other work that needs to be done.

Would hate to walk away from the property as we do love it, just worried about being taken for a ride by a vendor who seems like, to be blunt, an idiot whos lied throuought.

TBagpuss

If he bungled the work he did, i would not feel comfortable asking him to do it before exchange - who is to say it would be any better?

It would be reasonable to negotiate a lower price with a view to doing the work yourselves, but you would need to look at whether you can afford it - you are likely to find that you can borrow less if the sale price is lowered.

One option would be to get independent quotes for the work required, and then decide whether to negotiate or not.

Pandilex

What survey did you have done? Presumably full structural survey?

lincroft1710

Undoing bad workmanship and making good will cost considerably more than doing the job properly first time.

If you don't want a lot of stress and hassle, I would consider cutting your losses and looking for somewhere else.

DRP

robbrewer wrote: »

The first time we looked round, the estate agent told us the first thing they checked was he had all relevant planning permission and building regs certificates.

Our solicters since found he has none, He states he does not need planning

ho ho ho - the EA for the house we bought said exactly the same - they don't care and are counting on you reaching the 'point of no return' - when you are financially committed - before you find out it is all a big bodge...

You will have exactly these problems with a buyer when you sell the place on, so make sure you get a big price reduction and/or get the owner to regularise the work (ie. BR inspectors come and tell him what it needs to be up to scratch).

TBH it sounds like there is far too much work needed for easy regularisation so I would probably be walking at his point (unless a huge discount is forthcoming)

Johnandabby

But if it's structural issues that need to be fixed asap, then will you have the cash to do so even if you get a big discount on the sale price?

Worst case you'll need to rebuild the rear extension, rewire the whole house, reinstate the chimney at ground floor, and strip out and redo the loft conversion....

Even with a massive discount I would personally still be walking away. At this stage I wouldn't trust any piece of paper the buyer or EA provided...

I was always told to never buy a house from a builder, plumber or electrician...

harrys_dad

I would walk away immediately. I also assume that you have nothing in writing from the Estate Agent about "checking all the planning permissions and building regs". Did the advertising for house explicitly mention the third bedroom If so, this is almost certainly misrepresentation.

Yes you love the house, and have committed money, but even with a price reduction you are getting into a whole heap of problems for the future. Once again, walk away.

patricia..xx

I would agree with the walk away comments. These are not minor issues re building regs, but sounds like the whole thing was botched and potentially needs redoing in full. Unless you can get an idea of value of a 2 bed, non extended house and reduce by that much I would find somewhere else.

Don't think that the survey money was wasted, this is exactly what you paid for, to be told it isn't what you thought on first look. Don't throw more money at this house unless you seriously think about it first.

Ozzuk

You could ask for indemnity policies for the lack of building regs but unless this house was bargain of the century I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. There is no way the guy is going to get BR as its described and you may even run into mortgage issues.

patricia..xx

Indemnities are fine for stuff that was done properly, just not procedurally - e.g. we had one for lack of FENSA certificate on doors that were clearly watertight, and another for installation of decking. However, if there was any doubt that the whole structure was at risk I wouldn't accept one

Campervanman

We had a similar situation with a house we loved. We stuck in there and put in a lower offer after survey which they accepted. However when we had a post survey call with the surveyor he recommended we walked away. It wasnt so much what had been done (home loft conversion, dodgy electrics, home chimney breast removal etc) but the potential knock on effects. He pointed out that we were seeing the tip of a iceberg and once the house was ours we might find much more that was problematic (say under fitted carpets, behind the fitted kitchen). We walked away and it hurt but now Im so glad we did. The property never sold in the end and its now rented by the orginal owners.