indemnity policy for lack of building regulation approval?

freda

Our solicitors want to charge us £120 for an indemnity policy for the lack of building regulation approval. When we had a conservatory added, they removed what was the back patio doors and just left an archway from the house to the conservatory. Apparently there should still be a patio door there.

Is this really a necessary cost? What and who does it insure against what?

Thank you in advance.

zzzLazyDaisy

The indemnity policy insures against the local building inspector enforcing the building regs. Very often lenders will not lend on a house without the buikdings regs certificate - either that of they will down value your house and the buyer will then seek to re-negotiate the price. Your alternative would be to reinstate the patio doors and get a buildings regs certificate retrospectively - but that will probably be much more expensive as the cost of the initial visit by the building control inspector is about £450, he will tell you what he wants doing (and it may not stop at the patio door) and then you will have the cost of doing it all to the standard that applied when you did the alteration.

What you must NOT do is involve the building control inspector, or alert the council, unless you really do want to get involved in doing the remedial work. Once the council has been made aware of the issue, you cannot get an indemnity insurance.

I had personal experience of the mess this can cause when my conveyancing solicitor's secretary e-mailed building control for advice because the solicitor was on holiday when a building regs issue came to light.

What you are really paying for is a way of smoothing over the problems this sort of thing can cause and enabling your sale to go through without having to put the building work right.

freda

Thank you very much for your reply, LazyDaisy, its very helpful. It seems daft for the sake of some ugly patio doors but there you go, it seems as if it is money worth spending.

pmlindyloo

freda wrote: »

Our solicitors want to charge us £120 for an indemnity policy for the lack of building regulation approval. When we had a conservatory added, they removed what was the back patio doors and just left an archway from the house to the conservatory. Apparently there should still be a patio door there.

Is this really a necessary cost? What and who does it insure against what?

Thank you in advance.

Agree absolutely with lazydaisy.

Lack of the correct building regulations can be a massive problem in house sales.

Think yourself lucky (not meant to be rude) that your buyers have not asked you to get a retrospective building regulations certificate or insisted on endless to-ing and fro-ing between your solicitor and theirs about this 'problem'.

Many buyers would have pulled out because of future difficulties with selling the house without the correct certificates and/or questions about the safety of the conservatory.

Just pay up so the sale can go through swiftly.

G_M

And the lesson for the future, and for others, is to comply with the regs when getting work done.

The regs are there for good reasons. Largely to do with safety/quality of build, but in this case to do with keeping property insulation levels at an appropriate standard.

harrys_dad

Once the patio doors are removed then I think the conservatory ceases to be "permitted development". If I was buying the house I would be concerned about the structural integrity as well as insulation. If I was you I would pay the insurance and consider yourself very lucky.

littlepinkbiscuits

That was my understanding too, same as porches. Once there is no barrier between the house and porch/conservatory, more regulations apply (FENSA registration for instance).