Buying house without loft building regs

aneary

The flat I was buying had a loft room which was classed as an office/dressing room when the survey was completed it wasn't counted in the valuation as it wouldn't meet building regs.

It stated ' For valuation purposes the room has not been included
in the accommodation.'

Your survey would have probably come back with a similar statement if there was an issue.

Alter_ego

squirrelchops wrote: »

There is a building reg approval and a receipt for inspection so phone the council and see what they have on record.

I believe if you do that indemnity insurance is no longer an option.

Surrey_EA

squirrelchops wrote: »

Your solicitor should be advising indemnity insurance - that is what normally happens when you buy something without the proper regs.

There is a building reg approval and a receipt for inspection so phone the council and see what they have on record.

That deals with the building regs side of things.

Regarding how it was marketed that is a matter for argument with the EA as others have said

This thread talks about indemnity insurance:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5671827

Absolutely don't do this - once you do it will be impossible to obtain indemnity insurance.

sheramber

We are in Scotland if that makes any difference,

We bought a house with a loft conversion in 2006.

When we viewed it the seller advised up they knew they would have to get a completion for the conversion which was done in 1998.

When the house had been planned and built it had been done with the option for the conversion. The conversion had panning permission but they had never bothered to get the certificate.

When we advised our solicitor we wanted to put in an offer his first question was do they have a completion certificate for the attic conversion.

The council came out to inspect it and found three items to be rectified- not enough ventilation tiles in the roof, open tread staircase had too big a gap between the treads and the glass in the front door was not safety glass.

The seller had to arrange for these to be sorted and a sum of money for the estimated cost was retained by our solicitor. The council could no longer issue a completion certificate but would issue a 'letter of comfort' instead.

These were done although when the joiner removed the door glass he discovered it was in fact safety glass but was not marked a s such.

Due to the difficulty og getting workmen to turn up in our rural area it took a few moths fro these to be done, The seller had to pay the workmen for the work and got the retained money when our solicitor got the letter of comfort.

Doozergirl

It's your survey that will highlight whether it is safe or not.

If the owners at the time had gone to the expense of having full plans approved for building regulations at a cost that would certainly have been considerably in excess of £1000, then there is no logical reason why they wouldn't have built the loft to those plans. Clearly their intention wasn't to bodge the job at the start or they'd not have paid an architect for that level of detail, or building control for the initial assessments. A lot of peoppe don't realise thst they need that final inspection and paperwork when the plans are approved.

There is no law that says that paperwork needs to exist in order for something to be classed as a room. Tellingly, this 'legal bedroom' question never arises with extensions, only loft conversions for some reason, but the process is the same. You build something, you get it signed off.

The majority of houses in this country, almost certainly including yours, were built before formal building control was introduced and don't have a certificate. Nobody raises the question about whether houses are able to be sold as houses without them.

Indemnity policy is a route to take. If you have these plans for the loft conversion then you could have a specialist survey to check for evidence that the loft has been built according to that plan. If it doesn't comply then I would think it would be relatively minor issues, not the full blown structural ones.