Vendor lying about alterations?

MrsM71

Hi
Wonder if anyone can give me some advice please.
We are in the process of buying a house that has had a loft conversion & had the integral garage converted to a bedroom.
In addition our surveyor has made specific query as to why the roof has been replaced.
Following receipt of the local searches we have found that no permissions have been sought nor granted for any of the above.
Having raised the resultant query with the vendors solicitor we have been advised that the roof has been pressure washed & some tiles replaced giving it the appearance of being new & that in the 25 years that the vendor has owned the property he has not made any alterations.
I'm afraid that we simply do not believe this to be true.
The whole house has had bodge job works completed (we believe that the vendor never lived there himself but had a number of his workers living there as part of their renumeration).
In our opinion the works appear to be more recent than 25+ years old & poorly completed.
The velux windows in the roof are definitely newer than 25 years old. The garage doors were never removed so from the outside it appears that it remains intact.
I have not yet had a chance to chat the response through with my solicitor.
Does any one have any advice as to how we might check out the question of alterations ourselves rather than relying on the vendors reply?
Obviously the purchase price of what is potentially a 2 bed is considerably less than a 3/4 bed we think we are buying.
Thank you.

hazyjo

I doubt the conversion will meet regs. If not, it definitely can't be classed as a bedroom (more like 'boarded useable loft space').


As for the garage, well, that's certainly not a bedroom. Have they put windows in?!


Personally, I'd probably run a mile as it doesn't sound like they're willing to admit it's a 2 bed house, not a 4 bed...


Jx

Hoploz

Planning permission may not have been required for these conversions, however, building regulations should have been followed if indeed the work was done within the last 25 years as you believe. Your solicitor should be able to access these records to clarify if they exist. Some councils have BR applications online so you might be ale to search yourself if this is the case in your area.

If the work has been done without following building regs it's up to you to satisfy yourself there aren't any structural issues, eg your survey.

jimbog

Anything visible on the Google Earth? Go onto Google Earth then - 'View' then select 'historical Imagery' and use the slider on the top left to look at the views at different dates

TheGardener

I'm struggling to work out why you would buy it given your doubts unless the price is an absolute steal - in which case you already know why and are presumably prepared to buy it anyway?.

MrsM71

Thank you for you replies.

We did have a look at Google Earth but the roof lights are not very visible on the current view so I'm not too hopeful for earlier images - but I guess we might be able to detect a change in the overall roof.

The converted garage does have a window on the side.

We are paying top whack for the property because we believe it has huge potential & are hoping it will prove to be our forever home.

We are planning on applying for permission to carry out some extensive alterations ourselves. Could the potentially unauthorised previous works have an impact on that? Should we just accept that we might be being lied to & hope that it all works out ok?

I guess that our main issue is that we don't want to be taken for fools either financially or otherwise!

When_the_going_gets_tough

I would go and talk to the planning dept regarding the old and proposed works. The other question is whether you are relying on the quality of the work done or whether you will be redeveloping it anyway.

AdrianC

Does it really matter what work was done when, anyway?

You're buying the house, as it sits there today. You say that the work appears to be a "bodge job". Well, fine. So does it matter if it's a 25yo bodge or a recent one?

It seems like the answer's fairly straightforward. Either buy it, for as low a price as the vendor will take, if you think that's good value. Or don't. History is irrelevant.

tanith

Ask the neighbours..

Cakeguts

A 2 bed house with a loft conversion and a converted garage is not a 3/4 bed house. It is a 2 bed house. It has the original size of a 2 bed house and how ever much potential you think it has it will never be worth what a 3/4 bed purpose built house is worth.

So make sure that you are paying the price for a 2 bed house with a converted garage and a loft conversion not the price for a cheap 3/4 bed house because this is not what this is. It will never be a 3/4 bed house because this is not what it was built as. If you are not very careful you will lose money on it if you ever have to sell it if you buy it as a 3/4 bed house because after improvements you will have spent more on it than it will ever be worth.

So work out how much the repairs to the bodged work is going to be and work out how much it would cost to buy a 2 bed house and do this work from scratch and see what the difference is.

If you want a 3/4 bed house buy one that is purpose built so that the downstairs size matches the bedroom size and isn't smaller.

konark

So you're paying' top-whack' for a house that you yourself admit is full of bodges, many of which may not even be legal, from an owner who seems shifty and evasive.

What would you be willing to pay for a house in good order? An 'insane' price?.