Buyer seeking advice for building certificate

huntercity

Dear all

Recently we are in the process of buying a house and everything looks positive so far - offer accepted, mortgage issued in a week and the satisfied home report received.

However, when I did some local authority search of the house on the council website (most of the information are public accessible ), I started to be paniking on the building warrant certificate of the alterations of the house.

To cut a long story short, in 2010 the vendor converted the attached garage into a bedroom and also erected a conversatory in the rear garden. He did get the planning permission and building warrant granted. But what strikes me is that the completion certificate has still not been issued yet, although his children have been living in the converted bedroom for 5 years. The home report does not indicate anything negative on the conservatory and the converted bedroom, but contains a statement :

"The valuation is made on the assumption that any alterations that may have been carried out to the property satisfy all relevant legislation and have full certification where appropriate"

What worried me is that we are unsure how the lack of completion certificate would affect the salability and value of the house in the future if we bought the house. There are therefore a couple of ideas coming to my mind:

1. Ask the vendor to provide/apply for a completion certificate (6 weeks now until date of entry). But the vendor may choose to pull out.

2. Find someone other than council surveyor to certify that the conversions comply with building regulations and then buy an indemnity policy. But not sure if the policy can be valid as the council has been awared of the conversion ( PP and building warrant granted before conversion)

3. Re-negotiate the price and pull out if the vendor refused to do so.

I believe there have been many folks on the board being in the similar situation and I would really appreciate any suggestions from you guys!

davidmcn

Your solicitor will be checking this out anyway - speak to them for advice. (If you have a mortgage, simply renegotiating the price isn't an option, as no matter the price your lender will need completion certificate/letter of comfort or an indemnity policy).

huntercity

davidmcn wrote: »

Your solicitor will be checking this out anyway - speak to them for advice. (If you have a mortgage, simply renegotiating the price isn't an option, as no matter the price your lender will need completion certificate/letter of comfort or an indemnity policy).

Thank you David. I agree with you that lender may be aware of this and possibly re-evalute the mortgage offer. So perhaps the best solution is to ask the vendor for the certificate.

davidmcn

huntercity wrote: »

Thank you David. I agree with you that lender may be aware of this and possibly re-evalute the mortgage offer. So perhaps the best solution is to ask the vendor for the certificate.

Unlikely that your lender will actually be made aware of it, as long as your solicitor can obtain something which covers their standard requirements. But as a minimum, you'll need whatever will enable your solicitor to sign things off for your lender.

G_M

There are 3 risks here - you need to decide which affect/concern you:

1) mortgage lender witholds loan: solution is indemnity insurance

2) council may enforce building regulations: no solution needed - after 5 years they can't

3) conversion may be poorly /dangerously constructed: solutions
a) apply for retrospective sign off and hope the building passes and does not need re-converting. Also accept the cost/dificulty (digging down to inspect foundations? removing plaster to inspect walls/insulation? etc)
b) have as thorough a survy done as possible without digging/exposing etc