Unauthorised building works - accept insurance or demand retrospective consent?

davidmcn

AlexMac wrote: »

Lawyers; doncha' luvvem?

More to do with lenders' recent practice of trying to pin the blame for repossession losses on the surveyors and/or lawyers breaching some technicality in their instructions during the mortgage process, rather than accepting responsibility for dishing out mortgages to all and sundry. After a few claims you'd be trying to cover your ar5e too.

Hoploz

I was going to say what Doozergirl said - as pretty major work has been done after the wall was removed, calculations will have been done accordingly and the likelihood is it's all quite safe.

My understanding is that indemnity policies are transferable, so the policy your seller was given when they bought should be able to be passed to you at no cost. Is the lender bothered? If so then this indemnity should suffice.

I wouldn't worry. And besides, you said it is only PART of a structural wall rather than the whole thing so that makes it less of an issue as well.

You could ask for an indemnity against not getting freeholder consent. On the other hand, they would have been given the plans when they gave permission for the recent new work so they will already be aware and not interested in the historic work.

melp2939

Thanks for your replies everyone - really helpful!

The estate agent is saying that the loft conversion would have required structural integrity tests to be done, so we can be confident that everything is fine. Not sure whether to trust the estate agent on this but we've heard the same thing from a few people now, making us feel more confident in taking a gamble, especially as the sellers seem to be getting antsy and we really don't want the sale to fall through.

Does anyone know if there would be documentation to show that the builders did structural tests as part of the loft conversion? Nothing like that has come to us through our solicitor.

eddddy

melp2939 wrote: »

Does anyone know if there would be documentation to show that the builders did structural tests as part of the loft conversion? Nothing like that has come to us through our solicitor.

The Local Authority Building Control department should have a file of all the relevant documents submitted to them, which you should be able to inspect.

Hoploz

I don't think there's any need to worry. Just get whatever your lender requires to proceed and forget about it all.