Old loft conversion need building regs?

carlisa

We are in the process of selling our 3 bed terrace and we are facing an issue with regard to the loft conversion.

The loft has been converted into the third double bedroom, and the small single bedroom is now the staircase up to the loft. This conversion was done to a good standard and we know if was done over 15 years ago, as the last 2 owners stated they did not do any building work to the property.

We bought the property as a 3 bedroom, and nothing was mentioned about it requiring building regulations when we bought it 11 years ago.

Our problem is that our buyer is requesting building regulations? We have no paperwork dating back to when the loft was converted or about the loft at all.

Our buyer is asking us to do one of the following:
1) Obtain a regularisation certificate
2) Bring it up to meet today's current building regulations
3) De-value the property as a 2 bedroom

After speaking to our local building control, we know that we can only obtain a regularisation certificate if the work was done after 1985. But we have no way of proving how old the conversion is?

My question is, how will we find out if our conversion is prior to 1985? Is the buyer right to demand building regulations on a very old loft conversion?

Any advice is very much appreciated!!

Halloumi

I'm hoping you'll get a few responses to this because I am in a very similar situation except the shoe is on the other foot (I'm the buyer). This seems to be a big problem in the house-buying and -selling world.

Has your buyer's solicitor already undertaken Local Authority searches and confirmed that the conversion was not assessed for building regs at the time?

davidmcn

You'll need to find someone prepared to make an educated guess about the age of the conversion (and see if the buyers agree). If it's 15 years old I'd be looking for the paperwork, if 50 years old I'd be less concerned.

dominoman

davidmcn wrote: »

You'll need to find someone prepared to make an educated guess about the age of the conversion (and see if the buyers agree). If it's 15 years old I'd be looking for the paperwork, if 50 years old I'd be less concerned.

Exactly that.

The longer it has been there the less important building regs are.

In the case of the house we were buying the surveyor thought that on balance, the main conversion had been done at least 30 years ago, so we didn't bother about building regs at all. He estimated the second loft room to be newer (within last 5-10 years) and that had no building regs but we let it lie.

Halle71

A word of warning on regularisation...

We are selling a house that we discovered does not have a building regs certificate for an extension built in 2006 by the previous owners.
As I was not aware there wasn't one, I contacted Building Control to get a copy (meaning I couldn't get an indemnity policy) and ended up discussing a certificate of regularisation with them. The process in pretty invasive (they have to examine inside walls/floors/drainage) and there is little or no chance that the work (even in 2006) would be compliant to today's regs meaning considerable remedial work.

There are two problems when you don't have a certificate - that the council may take action and that the quality of the work will be sub-standard.

As you are now past the period in which the council can take action this won't be a worry.

With regards to quality of building work we were going to offer to pay for a full structural survey for our buyers which would be a lot cheaper than any of the options your buyers have offered you.