Buying a house with a loft conversion

Lungboy

It's relatively easy to check if the floor has been properly reinforced, check how thick it is. I'd be more worried that they haven't fitted fire doors on the floor below the loft or a mains-connected smoke alarm.

[Deleted User]

We went through the exact same problem when buying our current house. The house was marketing as having a "converted loft space", had heating, lighting, power, windows and a fixed staircase to the loft room which was being used as a bedroom. After we had paid out for searches and fees, the vendor told us they had removed the staircase to the loft room in case "someone hurt themselves". We queried this with our solicitor and found that the conversion did not have buildings regulations. Our solicitor asked the council to inspect who reported that it was unsafe and did not conform to building or fire regulations. The vendor was given the option of either carrying out a full conversion or reverting back to a loft space. The vendors wanted us to take a building indemnity policy but our solicitor warned that these were worthless. We could not afford to pull out so had to proceed and the vendors converted the room back to a loft (they also filled all the radiators with air so the heating didn't work when we moved in in winter, removed the electrics from the garage, glued the garden gates shut, and poured fat down the sinks!!). We involved Trading Standards as the estate agent had inaccurately described the property and had failed to obtain the paperwork for the building regs and eventually, with the help of Trading Standards, we sued them and won.
Please be careful with this and get the local council round to check as our house could have potentially been a death trap

onlyroz

We did a loft conversion in 2013 and the required modifications to the rest of the house where:

- Fire doors to all bedrooms on the first floor
- Fire door between the hall and the lounge on the ground floor
- Wired in smoke alarms on all three floors

If any of these things are missing then a building inspection will fail.

DRP

we had similar [STRIKE]lying[/STRIKE] miscommunication with our vendors.

in order to proceed they got the loft regularised by the council BR office so that it complies with regs AT THE TIME IT WAS INSTALLED (not current). This included:

• checking the insulation* and structure
• mains fire alarms
• painting all doors with fire-resistant paint
• fitting tile vents
• replacing / respacing spindles on the stairwell

This cost them about 2k i think.

However:
Although we now have a compliant loft, think about what it means that a vendor is willing to lie and put your safety at risk, to sell his house.

Since buying the place we have found multiple bodges that were not apparent from survey, and were hidden by the vendors (in retrospect, we should have realised).


*1998 loft regs were not so hot on insulation it seems, so the loft is pretty uninhabitable in the winter...

Yorkie1

A structural survey is only likely to be able to answer safety / BR compliance issues if the surveyor can make holes in the walls to inspect joists, insulation, etc fully.

Once the council has been contacted, an indemnity insurance policy would be invalid as it only protects against the costs of council enforcement.

As others have said, ensure that the seller gets the BR situation rectified, or you've said you'll need to walk away because you want 3 official bedrooms as opposed to 2 plus a loft.