Searches and completion certificate

The_Logans

Hi - our solicitor has found an issue with the house we are buying. They had a major 2-storey extension put on in 2007. Now it appears there is no completion certificate, for which the reason is still unclear. The solicitor has explained that there are 2 potential options a) vendor gets a retrospective certificate (how likely is this 10 years on)? or they have to buy an indemnity policy. How much of an issue would this be if we were to resell in say 20 years time? At the moment we see this as being our family home until the kids are grown and moved out (but who knows what the future holds!?)

Hoploz

The issue is whether you can establish it's structurally sound.

The council aren't going to enforce anything after this length of time, however your lender is likely to require the indemnity policy as a belt and braces solution. It's not really any use whatsoever in practice.

So have you had/are you having a survey? If it hasn't been done yet you could ask the surveyor to pay it particular attention, but if already done and nothing has come up its probably fine.

There are many reasons why there's no completion certificate. Your solicitor ought to be able to establish whether an application was ever made to building control for it (some councils have this online publicly so you might find out yourself) it could be that it's a cowboy builder/DIY job, but much more likely the final inspection wasn't made.

When we did a major extension in our last house we were out of money by the end, so left some parts for a while, eg ensuite wasn't plumbed in till a year later, fire door to garage wasn't done immediately, and finally we needed an extractor fan in the utility room. Any one of these items undone meant that the job wasn't finished and therefore there wasn't a completion certificate. Main build began 2008, completion certificate I knew was outstanding and I contacted building inspector in 2012 to say we had finally got everything done, he came out and issued certificate. A homeowner less on the ball than me wouldn't have done this, leaving them in the situation you have when selling.

Ask the EA to have a conversation with seller about why there's no certificate. Or if you get the chance, you could ask them yourself. It could be they never got around to final inspection, or it may be a particular reason it could not be issued, or they may never have had any inspections, which would be more of a concern. But after this length of time if it were that unsafe cracks would literally be showing by now.

davidmcn

The_Logans wrote: »

a major 2-storey extension put on in 2007...How much of an issue would this be if we were to resell in say 20 years time?

Nobody with any sense should be querying the paperwork for a 30 year old extension.

For some context, the standard contractual assumption in Scotland is that you don't need to bother investigating statutory consents for any works which are over 20 years old. May be some dubiety about how old an alteration actually is if you don't have paperwork, but that aside I wouldn't worry about it. Especially if you're getting an indemnity policy anyway.