3 bed house really a 2

sarahjanekerri

Hi guys I would really appreciate some advice..its a long story but here goes...
In 2001 I brought a terraced house built 1890, it was advertised in the estate agents as a 3 bed house. One of the bedrooms being in the basement. I had a survey done, a mortgage approved and the sale went through all ok with my solicitors.
About 5 years later I was thinking to move out and rent it or sell it so I asked the estate agents to give me a valuation on both options.

The first question they asked me was whether the basement had building regs. I replied I have no idea as I didn't do the conversion (the basement used to be I think some kind of coal holding) it was a room, but no window, ventilation etc..

It didn't have building regs, so the estate agent said they could not rent it out as a 3 bed as it wasn't classed as a bedroom, so I either rent it out as a 2 bed..the other rooms being on the second floor, and if I wanted to sell it would be classed as a 2 bed.

This worried me, as I had brought it on the understanding and advertised as a 3 bed, and as it was my first house and I was younger I didn't know to ask these questions and the solicitors or surveyors did not probe any questions about the basement being a habitable room either.

So now I had a 2 bed house, with a basement with no building regs. With some inheritance money I decided to do the basement conversion myself to all building regs and standards at about a cost of £17,000, so now my house was definitely a 3 bed house and all proper documents etc.

I tried to put in a complaint about the estate agent advertising it as a 3 bed when it was a 2, and I also tried to put a complaint in about my mortgage lenders Woolwich but they tried to blame my solicitors saying they don't receive survey reports and the solicitors just blamed the Woolwich. In short I tried to complain and put a claim in against my solicitors but it didnt really get anywhere. The solicitors I believe were disbanded and may be operating under another company name. But I tried all this about 5 years ago and I seemed to get fobbed off, though I still feel I was cheated out of buying a 3 bed house when in fact it was a 2.

This is compounded even more, as I paid off my mortgage for the house in 2010 and recently applied for another mortgage on another property. To be told by my solicitors that Woolwich had not taken me off the system or whatever they do to say I was mortgage free on my first property. It didn't luckily cause a problem for buying my second property and I had to contact Woolwich to ask for the deeds and for a paper stating I had no mortgage with them and it was paid off in 2010.

I just received this letter stating the mortgage was paid off in 2010, but there is a covering letter dated 1999, from the Borough Council (I brought the house in 2001), saying that the house had been visited and the property now converted back to a single family occupancy however the room in the basement has no natural light and therefore cannot be used as a habitable room. I have never seen this letter until today.

So this letter was held at my local Council records in 1999.
I believe that my survey which was a basic one should have at least picked up that there had been some kind of basement conversion and whether or not there were BR's for this. Had I have known at the point of buying there were no BR's of course I would have stated this before buying and offered less and what would have been more to the value of a 2 bed house and not 3.

Is this worth pursuing? I paid £17,000 to convert it properly so when I sold it on if I wanted to there would be no problem but I do feel cheated.

Any advice would be helpful many thanks

davidmcn

If it's 11 years since you first became aware there was a problem, then I think you're well out of time as the relevant deadline for bringing an action is six years.

That's leaving aside what your loss would actually be, as a windowless, unventilated third "bedroom" is obviously going to be much less attractive even if it were officially considered habitable.

G_M

Plus presumably you viewed the property before buying? So you knew one room was a windowless unventilated basement room.

Davesnave

sarahjanekerri wrote: »

Any advice would be helpful many thanks

Pursuing this beyond the epistle above will be totally fruitless.

You've got it all off your chest, now move on.

greyroofer

A windowless unventilated basement is not a bedroom - unless you are a mole.

Stop trying to pretend otherwise. You sound like an intelligent person, but seem to have convinced yourself that a windowless, unventilated basement can be classed as a bedroom. Building regs or not - I would never put a bed in a windowless basement.

anselld

Hopefully the £17k included the provision of a window. Otherwise you have thrown good money after bad.

Davesnave

anselld wrote: »

Hopefully the £17k included the provision of a window. Otherwise you have thrown good money after bad.

If it now has "all the proper documents" to meet BR, it will have a window.

In that case, all the OP has done is extend the habitable space; something many of us do.

Unremarkable.

austonic

Building Regulations change and are not generally applied retrospectively.

What is allowed for rental purposes though is different. Current regulations apply.

I bought a house 15 years ago (recently sold) that had loft conversions not meeting current BR (lacked the fire protection that would now be required) but this was not an issue on resale, just a fact. In contrast, I had an en suite installed a few years ago and the builder had failed to get it inspected. I had to get building control in, carry out some remedial works, and have building control visit a second time and issue certificates accordingly.

Frankly, you knew at the time of purchase, even as someone young and new to home buying, that the third bedroom was pushing definitions somewhat. It was never going to match the value of a house with "normal" bedrooms. I don't think your solicitor or lender have anything to answer for, especially after so long.

The lender only cared about the safety of their money and profit they could make and really had no responsibility to protect your interests.

AdrianC

sarahjanekerri wrote: »

In 2001 I brought a terraced house ... advertised in the estate agents as a 3 bed house. One of the bedrooms being in the basement.

So now I had a 2 bed house, with a basement with no building regs.

Fifteen years ago, you bought a house with a "converted" basement with no windows.
A decade later, you still had a house with a "converted" bedroom with no windows - but somebody pointed out to you that nobody in their right mind would want to sleep there, and so they did not want to market it as a bedroom.

That's all that changed. Nothing else. You still owned exactly what you bought. There is no magical "This is a BEDROOM! <fanfare>"/"This is not a bedroom. <boo!>" tipping point.

eddddy

Guidelines and regulation of EAs have tightened over the years.

So EAs may have been comfortable about calling your house 3 bedroomed some years ago, but are more comfortable calling it 2 bedroomed today.

Similarly, mortgage lenders are more cautious, which makes valuers/surveyors more cautious. So they will now flag up things, which they didn't some years ago.

sarahjanekerri

thanks for the replies
Im not trying to convince myself a windowless room is a bedroom, I brought it like that but didn't check whether it Building Regs or not to be classed as a bedroom, and wasn't highlighted to me, it was my first time buying a house and tbh I had no idea to even ask or check. So when I got it looked at by the estate agent about 5 years later to possibly rent out that is when they asked if there were building regs and i found out then that there wasn't and then the house would be classed as a 2 bed not 3.
I converted it to building reg classification so yes a window was installed, and everything else that was needed to gain the BR's so now yes it is a 3 bed house

thanks for the replies but austonsmaydrydr telling me that 'you knew at purchase' ummm no i didn't...as naive as it seems and AdrianC "so now I had a 2 bed house, with a basement with no building regs..' sorry my explanation isn't so clear...that sentence was meant at the point of finding out before I started with my own conversion...I wrote it quite late last night and obvs not concentrating though the next paragraph does explain that I started the conversion with all the building regs so magically yes the 'bedroom' has changed to a bedroom that I have all the proper building regs for..wow you guys are harsh!