Buying a house with existing loft conversion but no building regulations

putitinmytil

Please help

We are about to buy a house without building regulations for the loft conversion. Am I liable? What do I need to do?

The survey has come back saying that our mortage company ''assumes that all necessary statutory and local authority consent and approvals have been obtained for the conversion of the roof space are into an attic bedroom''. However, we have had our mortgage offer agreed at full price though.

The owner has previously told us he had the architect draw up the plans but due to the design and cost he had his qualified brother carry out the work. Obviously this is just his word.

We want to buy the house but need to know where we would stand if we did - or how would we get it approved and what are the timescales and cost involved?

The property is advertised as a boarded loft room but is used as a bedroom.

Could this cause problems when we want to sell the property on in the future?

Any help would be greatly apprecaited - thank you :-)

bobbie78

you want to ask your solicitor for some indemnity insurance to cover the work - this will protect you if the council say it is against planning permission or building regs or something.

It won't protect you against your roof falling down or if it is really safe for people to be up there, if your survey says it is sound (a full building survey mind not just the mortgage valuation) then your ok to use it, I know they have to have special floors installed as part of the conversion so people don't come through the ceiling.

you can normally get the vendor to pay for the insurance part just get solicitor to sort it out with them.

guppy

There are lots of issues here, I'm not an expert on any of them, but here's some food for thought.

The mortgage company surveyor has valued the property assuming that the loft conversion has building regulations approval. Obviously you know it doesn't. This will come to light during the conveyancing - which might then cause problems with the mortgage, as the house could be worth less. I'm not a mortage expert though.

If the loft conversion doesn't have any dormer windows and its not in a conservation area, it probably didn't need planning permission. It would still have required building regulation approval for the following reasons:

- structural integrity: the original roof space was probably only designed to carry the weight of the roof, using it as a room could put undue pressure on the roof structure/floor joists. Building control normally require calculations to be submitted and for the joists to be strengthened if necessary. Also, where has the water tank been moved to? Is it sufficiently supported etc?

- fire protection: the building regs are very strict about this for good reason, its not something to be ignored if you intend to use the room as a bedroom. Do the loft windows provide a means of rescue, are the doors to the landing and hallway self closing meaning that there is safe escape route from the loft in case of smoke or fire? Are the smoke detectors wired up to each other?

- insulation: has the attic room been insulated properly? But not in a way that will trap condensation in the roof structure risking rot.

I would talk to the local building control department for some friendly advice. Unless its been done very recently I doubt they would be interested in taking any action against it. However I also doubt it would be possible to get retrospective approval because the parts they would need to see will generally be covered up by the floor/walls/ceiling etc.

If an architect drew the plans etc. and the work met the building regs. why would the owner not have got approval to protect his investment at the time?

Regarding the value of the house, obviously such houses change hands all the time. But, it will always come up in the conveyancing, and it will inevitably put some people off (me for example). Although in recent years its been a seller's market, this won't always be the case, so in comparing this house to other's, I wouldn't agree to pay much more just for the benefit of that roof room. It might be nice to have (providing its not too dodgy), but you'd be gullible if you valued it as a proper extra bedroom.

Whatever you decide, just keep in mind that there are plenty more fish in the sea, and with house prices appearing to be slowing, there's no rush on that count.

Good luck

budget_counsellor_shaz

putitinmytil wrote: »

Please help

We are about to buy a house without building regulations for the loft conversion. Am I liable? What do I need to do?

A house we were in the process of buying had a similar problem when it came up on the searches. We stopped the sale;)

You could try to sort it out but it is such a time consuming process it depends how long you want to wait. IMHO I would find another house.

Shaz

zekepes

It was marketed correctly (boarded loft room) and as such the price you have agreed to basically ignore the existence of that room.

We had an extension done a couple of years back and building regs were about £450, however they did require that we carried out works that could easily have been ignored - I have no idea what that figure would be.

Building regs for loft conversions are now very tight. We are looking into getting ours done now. One of the things it would mean is replacing all the door off the hall and first floor landing with fire door (8 doors for us). There are a lot of other issues though. Meeting the regulations does add a lot of expense.

We have converted the back of our garage into an office for my husband. We don't have planning or building regs for that and as such are aware that when we sell we would not market it as a room (although it looks exactly as you would expect any room in your house to look) or expect any extra money for that room. However, there is nothing structural so maybe that isn't a straight comparision.

I guess I would look at it as a 'bonus' room that you are almost getting for free? Not getting building regs may have saved your vendor some cash initially but when it comes to sale it is rarely a wise financial move.

Sorry! I know I have been no help in the real question!

PasturesNew

When I bought my house it had a loft room, boarded, electricity, windows, full staircase.
To get planning permission to do it properly cost me £1000.
To comply with building regs I'd have needed to pull up the whole floor, fit an extra 2 joists between each of the existing joists; take down all the boarding that existed and put up new walls, properly insulated; fit a fire door to the top or bottom of the staircase; make the whole thing 30-minute-fire-proof....
probably £5-10k of work. Plus disruption.

As you said, it was not advertised as a bedroom, so would have been priced by the estate agent accordingly.

It would be a shame if you didn't proceed as you haven't been sold something it's not. Yes, at any time you sell in the future this would be flagged up to the next buyer (like it has to you). Depends what you wanted to do with that room in the short-term and long-term and what your plans are for staying/moving in the future. And, of course, the depth of your pockets.

Jonbvn

When was the conversion done? If the work was done over 10 years ago, then building regs approval is no longer required. However, this is no guarantee that the works were done properly, and are structurally sound.

Best to get indeminty insurance from the vendor, or if they refuse, walk away.

chartreuse_2

We've been there and done exactly the same as you're proposing.

As others have suggested, talk to your solicitor and have the vendor buy indemnity insurance. This will cost them approx £250.

Do NOT talk to building control. Even if the clock has run out on statutory provisions, they can still get a civil order if they become aware of it. And if you make them aware of it, that will likely void your indemnity insurance.

IMHO, it's not a big deal. If you're prepared to go ahead (as many people are) then so will your buyer be when you come to sell.

saxmund

Some friends bought a property with this problem, they didn't want to walk away from it as they were buying a smallholding and there's not so many of those around. From memory, they asked to vendor to get it inspected & certified which didn't turn out to be that difficult. I would say, if it's done properly then it will be easy to certify. If it hasn't been done properly, you don't want it. If the vendor had it designed by an architect and his brother was fully qualified then they should have built it to regs as a matter of course. I suppose the other approach would be to use it as a loft, as long as that's all you're paying for, and then at some time get the building regs sorted out and any additional work, and increase the value of your house by "adding" an extra bedroom.

guppy

Futher to what others have said, check the price yourself in comparison to other properties. An estate agent will sell the property for as much as they can get, if someone wants to pay over the odds for a dodgy loft conversion, they won't stand in the way.

And I would still recommend talking to building control, just don't give them the address. Just keep in mind that there are good reasons that the regulations are so strict regarding loft conversions - especially regarding fire protection.

If you do go ahead, if you're thinking of using it as a kid's bedroom, at least look at getting the fire safety stuff looked at. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, yes, self-closing doors can be a pain, but it took a lot of people to die before it became the law to install them.

Sammy85_2

Hi, we had a similar problem when purchasing our house.

Its a 150 year old standstone EOT. When the outside loo was moved inside they extended the shed and made it into a garage. Without any planning permission.
This was flagged up at survey and we were a little concerned.

Our friend at the planning office assured us that as the garage had been there for almost 20years it would be highly unlikely that we would be required to demolish it for lack of planning permission, but advised us to seek an indemnity policy, which the seller took out before we purchased.

The policy is valid for the life of the property while it remains structurally sound (which is probably forever on such a solid building!) and pays out the market value of the entire property should we ever have to knock it down due to the lack of planning permission. (provided we didnt cause it to be found out by drawing attention to it).

I dont know how much the policy cost, but if we had had to pay for it ourselves we would have, purely for the peace of mind it provides, plus if we ever sell up we wont encounter the same problems as the previous owner did!

Regarding loft conversions, im not too sure where you stand with that, but i do know my dad did his loft out when we were kids. He did it himself and it doesnt even have a staircase, just a fixed ladder down through the 2nd bedroom. I loved that room even though you had to go through the 2nd bedroom, it was better than sharing like my sister and i had to do before!!

When they considered selling the house last year the EA just said they market it as an additional room as it couldnt be marketed as a bedroom without meeting building regs. She advised furnishing it as bedroom, but under no circumstances were we to say its a bedroom to anyone. That way the viewers will hopefully see it as a bedroom but without it being marketed as such!

good luck!