Building Regs - Garage Conversion & inventory

orionmoo

I'm in the process of buying a house at the moment, just had a letter from the solicitor today with paperwork from the vendor, one of which was a questionnaire about the property. In the section about the garage conversion they've ticked a box to say building control completion certification was not required. In the box that says, if not required please explain why they've just wrote 'not required'.

Does anyone know whether (attached) garage conversions (to a 3rd reception room/extra downstairs bedroom) do require building regs? I was under the impression from a quick bit of googling that it was.

Anyone have any experience with this sort of thing?

The fixtures/fittings list also says they're going to leave a shed - they had 2 sheds in the garden and one was falling to pieces. Do you guys think its acceptable to make amendments to the inventory to say we do not wish for the shed to remain. It'd just end up causing us a pain to remove it when we move in!

Finally, they've listed that all curtains/blind/curtain rails will remain except for the kitchen they've noted that they want us to offer money for them. To me this means the house they're moving into has windows of a different width so they wont fit. I dont really remember what the blind looked like, do many people offer a bit extra for them, or again could we just say no take them with you.

What happens if things they say will be removed are left behind, for instance down the side of the house they have what appears to be old dog boxes/cages. If we made it a condition that these are removed, and they're not could we bill for their removal to the old owner?

That's the sort of things landlords do in rented accommodation - anything you leave behind they'll sell, keep the proceeds and also charge you for their time spent selling it/getting rid of it!

Cheers guys

jc808

when was the work on the garage done

orionmoo

Not sure they didn't provide a date on their paperwork. They've had the property since 2004 themselves.
Finding quite a few missed details or incorrectly completed bits in these forms we've been sent that they've filled in!

eddddy

In terms of moving forward...

Building Regs - Ask your solicitor to ask vendors confirmation of why building regs certification wasn't required, whether they confirmed this with the council, and whether they have a letter from the council (or other docs) to confirm this?

Rubbish/shed removal, curtains blinds etc - negotiate that through the EA. Once it's all agreed tell, your solicitor and/he she will include it in the agreement.

(Don't try to negotiate the price of a blind through a solicitor! If the solicitor starts charging you extra for the extra work, their rates are likely to be between £150 and £250 per hour.)

If things like rubbish removal are agreed between solicitors, and it's not removed, you can claim the cost of removal from the vendors.

pmlindyloo

If they had the property since 2004 then they most certainly will have required a certificate of building regulations themselves when they purchased the property or at least their solicitor/mortgage lender would have raised the issue.

This link may help with the dates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_regulations_in_the_United_Kingdom

We had a garage conversion (attached) four years ago and we required building regs as it is classed as a change of use. Plus, we needed electrical certificate too.

Having said all that it is obvious that the vendor has no certificate so you either:

1. ask them to seek retrospective building regs compliance (could be expensive and intrusive - digging into walls etc)
2. get an indemnity insurance
3. take a risk and just go ahead
4, make sure you have a full survey to ensure it is safe and up to standard

Your solicitor/mortgage lender are likely to ask for the certificate and if not available will probably ask for an indemnity insurance.

Indemnity insurance + full survey is the easiest and quickest route.

Very little chance of the council checking on this but be aware that enquiring about the garage conversion and giving the address will mean that an indemnity insurance would be invalid.

Once you know the date of the conversion you could ask the council a general question - would a garage conversion done in **** require building regs? This would, at least mean that the vendor would be aware and should sort it out and hopefully pay for either retrospective compliance or an indemnity insurance.

casperlarue

A garage conversion will need building regs, it may also need planning if the external appearance of the property has changed. Have you checked on the council website to see if any planning application was lodged?

orionmoo

Thanks for your input guys, very helpful!

Will talk it through with my partner tonight. Solicitor is being rather unhelpful to date, but now they have the draft contract they seem to be moving things forward.

All they did to the garage is take out the door, brick up the bottom and insert a window into the gap, then put flooring down and install radiators and probably some plasterboard on the wall or something to allow them to wallpaper.

I'll chase things up tonight after work and get back to you with updates if anyone's interested!

The vendor filled their paperwork in 2 weeks ago, we only received it yesterday; they asked to move before xmas but no chance of that now, that's in a week and we haven't had any of the solicitors searches back yet!

pmlindyloo

orionmoo wrote: »

Thanks for your input guys, very helpful!

Will talk it through with my partner tonight. Solicitor is being rather unhelpful to date, but now they have the draft contract they seem to be moving things forward.

All they did to the garage is take out the door, brick up the bottom and insert a window into the gap, then put flooring down and install radiators and probably some plasterboard on the wall or something to allow them to wallpaper.

I'll chase things up tonight after work and get back to you with updates if anyone's interested!

The vendor filled their paperwork in 2 weeks ago, we only received it yesterday; they asked to move before xmas but no chance of that now, that's in a week and we haven't had any of the solicitors searches back yet!

You need to read this to see what is demanded of a garage conversion:

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/garageconversion/

When we had ours done I was amazed at the level of insulation that was required and the flooring was substantially altered. Ours is so well insulated that no heating is required at all (although it is open plan to the sitting room/dining room.)

This one sounds very dodgy - do get it checked out structurally - sounds like a disaster waiting to happen regarding dampness.

orionmoo

We also wouldn't negotiate over something like a blind; just a bit petty really! Only because it won't fit in their new property I imagine so they want to recover some of the cost, but when you're given them hundreds of thousands it's kind of insignificant!

orionmoo

pmlindyloo wrote: »

You need to read this to see what is demanded of a garage conversion:

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/permission/commonprojects/garageconversion/

When we had ours done I was amazed at the level of insulation that was required and the flooring was substantially altered. Ours is so well insulated that no heating is required at all (although it is open plan to the sitting room/dining room.)

This one sounds very dodgy - do get it checked out structurally - sounds like a disaster waiting to happen regarding dampness.

From what I recall from the homebuyers report (don't have it to hand at work!) the surveyor said it will suffer from great heat loss from that new wall, possible future damp problems however there was no sign of any dampness in the walls recorded when he tested with his damp-o-meter.

An option for the future for us is always to turn it back into a garage. In our view having the additional room, but losing a garage, doesn't really add value. A future buyer could easily prefer a garage over an unused room, just as another would like the extra room and not need a garage!

lovinituk

I don't like the sound of this! We had our garage converted to a room 8 years ago. The builder was a family friend and very respected in his trade. The work was done to a very high standard but I don't recall any mention of building regs at the time - we just trusted him entirely! We are no longer in touch with him - is there any way I can find out if things were done correctly at the time?!