Rear extension without paperwork

asu5z

Hi all

Thanks for sparing time and going through my post. I will appreciate if you can give your valuable feedback.

I am a cash buyer, my offer accepted, structural survey carried out, solicitors hired and they discovered that the ten Feet rear extension built does not have paperwork (planning permission or building regulation certificate). The surveyor did not point out any structural fault within the extension but recommended to check for building regulation certificate. The current owner bought house in 2004 and says extension was built by previous owner and he was also not provided any documents.

This is a serious issue to me, after my offer accepted and before spending any money on purchase process I inquired from estate agent that if the extension has planning permission and building regulation certificates. Estate agent told me that solicitors will check this out for me. And now when I have already spent £1000+ we got to know that extension has no paperwork means unauthorized construction. I feel like, this is very unfair of estate agent and vendor. I made an offer assuming extension is legitimate but it clearly is not. What do you think, is it fair or unfair of EA? EA must be aware of this before taking on the property. Is this practice common or EA genuinely is not aware.

With regards to the rear extension, my questions are:

a. I will also face same problems with the house when I will be selling it in future. With illegal/unauthorized extension, is this house mortgagable? I need to check the future saleability of the house.

b. Can council issue enforcement notice to demolish the extension and bring the house in its original state as extension was built illegally?

c. With regards to extension and the situation I am in, is it common that people built extensions illegally and sell houses without much problem? Based on your knowledge and experience, what is the percentage of illegals extensions during conveyancing? I mean is this a rare case or a common practice? Is this something I should really be worried about?

Solicitors also notified me that other than the mortgage there are couple of charges on the property. Is it common?

I once again thank you in advance for your help and time.

Regards

Asu

Tigsteroonie

Google is your friend. I was searching for similar advice 2 days ago, and found a plethora of discussions on this subject including some very informative ones on MSE

You can use the gov's Planning Portal to see whether the extension would have required Planning Permission or not.

Your Google search will also reveal some interesting responses regarding the likelihood of the Council pursuing a case for an authorised extension (the answer is 'extremely unlikely')

You can purchase (or you could ask the vendor to purchase) Indemnity Insurance. This will insure the owner against the risk of the Council pursuing you with regards to any non-compliance in terms of paperwork. It will not insure you against problems with the actual construction of the extension. But you can only take out the insurance if you haven't contacted the council to find out about permission/regulations status, it seems.

Should the EA have known? I doubt it. They only know what the vendor has told them. Did you not notice the construction method when you viewed the property?

Is it mortgageable? I don't know. I don't think the paperwork issue makes it less mortgageable, more the method of construction may influence mortgage value. Ask me again in a week or two!

missindecisive

I don't think this is the estate agent's fault. You should have asked to see the completion certificate before making your offer.

ofcourse, retrospective planning permission may be obtained, providing the building has complied with all the relevant rules and reguations during construction.
good luck.

makeyourdaddyproud

Buy it and take a chance.

If it was built before a certain time it is unlikely the council will raise eyebrows.

No point is stressing over what can turn out to be nothing.

leanne86

We are currently in a similar situation. Previous owners of the house we are purchasing added an extension with no building regs/planning permission documentation to be found.

We have requested the regularisation route I.e. having the council out to inspect and hopefully sign off retrospectively. We chose this option as like already said the indemnity policy does not cover you against poor workmanship etc. We will also potentially be making some adaptations to the property in the future which we would have needed permissions for, therefore it made sense for us to get it sorted now.

Have been advised will have 5ish weeks. Fingers crossed its all signed off!

Annie1960

Hi Asu

There are different issues here to consider.

Firstly, at the time the extension was built, it may not have needed planning consent (if it was under permitted development).

Compliance certificates seem to be a relatively recent thing (e.g. FENSA certificates came in under some EU regulation in 2002), and electrical certificates were not required until after that. So, at the time the extension was done, perhaps certificates were not needed.

You need to differentiate between an extension that is old (and did not need consent and certificates) and one that is newer, and does not have certificates because the work is not up to standard. The main risk is that the extension may have been badly built, and may be in danger of falling down. A survey should help you to find out how safe the extension is.

The paperwork relating to planning consent and compliance certificates is normally carried out by the solicitor. The EA would not necessarily know about this.

TowerTom

The repo we've just exchanged on had no building reg documents for extension or easement of access. The extension looks like it was built many moons ago though and surveyor had no concerns with it.

Our vendors agreed to cover the indemnity insurance - from what I could tell, it's usually the vendor that would cover this. This will then be passed down to any future purchaser - one off fee for the insurance.

I was in your position not long ago worrying about the likelihood of council coming for me, next door making a claim on the land or even lender pulling the mortgage offer. However, my solicitor made it clear that it's very unlikely Council will come after you unless you flag it up with them so under no circumstances ask them about it or whether you can get retrospective certificates granted if you get indemnity insurance. Likewise with next door, we were told never to mention lack of easement of access docs (solicitor put this in capital letters with multiple exclamation marks on his final report!). We have a copy of his deeds which have statements for right of way though. Lenders were fine with everything.

It's up to you at the end of the day though whether you feel the extension has been built to a high standard and you're happy to go ahead without documents - as above, it may not have needed documents at the time. Ours was made long ago and has stood the test of time and surveyor had no issues so we were happy with indemnity insurance to get the sale progressing.

Brenny

As others have said it is quite likely that the extension was built under Permitted Development rights and did not require planning permission.

If the extension was classed as a conservatory (has it got a glass roof and doors between main house and extension?) it is likely that Building Regs wasn't required.

In any case the chance of any action being taken against you is extremely remote.

traineepensioner

(1) As the extension is over 10 years old any problems with the construction would probably be apparent by now.
(2) It would probably be very expensive to bring it up to the latest building reg's and apply to the council for regularisation.
(3) The council won't be interested in doing anything about it as it's over 4 years old....but once you bring the extension to their attention you will invalidate any indemnity insurance.

As others have said, if you feel the need, ask the vendor to supply indemnity insurance but I really doubt you'll need it

Halle71

We're in the opposite position.

We purchased our house in 2009 and, now we are in the process of selling, have discovered that a kitchen extension built by the previous owners in 2006 does not have a building regs certificate. It does however have building consent/certificate of lawfulness.

Our buyers are not aware yet because i filled the forms in when we assumed we did have it (the fact our solicitor did not alert us is something the ombudsman is looking into) and only found out the truth ehen i called the council for a 'replacement' certificate. As they initially said they would provide retrospective approval if we got an electrical certificate we have waited but now they have changed their mind and offered a letter of comfort we are going to send them this instead.

We are worried that they won't want the house so the replies here have been interesting and feeling a bit more hopeful.

In our favour the extension still looks immaculate and there are no problems after 8 years, plus we are going to supply electrical certificate, gas safety certificate and offer to pay for a building survey along with the letter of comfort. If these buyers fall through because of it we will have to take it off the market and look into regularisation although it will be expensive. And messy.

Soooooo stressful :-(

Fiontxt

Hi all, I have been worrying about no building regs for the 2 storey extension, removed of original wall between lounge/hallway and loft conversion. The vendors bought this property 6 years ago and those are already exist, they aren't going for retrospective and their attitude is buy it or leave it!
Our conveyancer can't ask for indemnity policy for the loft conversion as is his company policy, but he has requested indemnity policy for rewiring and new heating system which the vendors installed 6 yrs ago.
Can I get the indemnity policy for the loft ourself?

I like the house but what's the risk here as the vendors has no paperwork for nearly all their work done in the past 6 yrs?!

Please advise, anyone...
Thx!