Buying a house, Building regs n manhole issue

Hirdos

Hi, please can you guys help on what options I may have?

I am in the process of buying a property. The house was built around 1930. The issue is that the vendors don’t have the final building regulations certificate and the property has a manhole inside the kitchen.

Please see the full summary below. We really love the house and want to understand potential risks, issues and costs we may face due to these issues.

There was a side and rear extension work carried out
· There is Planning Permission
· There is no Building Regulation Approval
· There is passing of plans by the local authority, however this does not confirm whether the works were completed in accordance with these plans as there is no final Building Regulation Certificate.
· Having spoken with Building Control, they indicated that the build over agreement with Thames Water would have been required however was rejected. It is not clear whether it was rejected by them or the Thames Water. They have also advised that the inspection was carried out to roof level, however no inspection was carried out thereafter.
· Building Control have provided a letter of comfort which states that in view of the lapse of time (around 15 years) since the last inspection, they will not be carrying out a final inspection and no further action will be taken. However this does not prevent them from taking action under s36(6) of The Building Act 1984, under which the Local Authority may serve an enforcement notice on the building owner requiring alteration or removal of work which contravenes the regulations. If the owner does not comply with the notice the Local Authority has the power to undertake the work itself and recover the costs of doing so from the owner.

Whilst we could have obtained Building Regulation Indemnity to protect against this, this is no longer an option as contact has been made with the Local Authority for the letter of comfort.
· The drainage search shows that Thames were consulted to approve an agreement to build over or in close vicinity of a sewer, drain or disposal main and as mentioned above it was rejected.
· There is a manhole in the kitchen area and the vendor is saying it is accessible by lifting the wooden floorboard. There is a access hatch in the kitchen to allow for inspection and cleaning.
· Our survey does show a picture with the wheel of the car over the drain in the front driveway.

· Our solicitor has advised that a Sewer or Drain Indemnity can be obtained

We have asked the vendor to carry out a drain survey so we can understand the state of it and how many properties it connects to

Many thanks in advance!

Cheers

Doozergirl

You've just explained the situation and your options.

You don't need an indemnity policy for building control as you have a letter of comfort.

You can have an indemnity policy for the sewer.

You're having the drains checked.

It's up to you whether you decide to buy it or not. A manhole in a kitchen isn't great. It does contravene current regs but it was acceptable in the not so distant past. I presume they have double sealed it though?

Hirdos

Thanks for your feedback. It is very much appreciated.

We understand some options that are available. But, are also trying to understand if we should buy this house or not from others opinions and experiences.

I don’t know if it’s double sealed. But, thanks for pointing this out. I will surely check this.

Guys, please give your advice and share your experiences. As mentioned, we really love the house but at the same time don’t want to get carried away if it’s not the right decision for us.

Doozergirl

It's something that was commonplace, in fact, it's only the age of the property that meant it needed a build over agreement at the time. Before 2011, only shared drains of house built prior to 1936 needed a build over agreement and everything else was considered your own private property. Now, all shared drains have been adopted by the water authorities.

Perhaps it was rejected if the drains didn't actually fall under the water authority's remit at the time and nothing was actually required from them?! You say 1930s, but do you know if it was before or after 1936?

I would say that double sealing is something just to stop smells and the likelihood of any sewage popping up. If it's been there for 15 years it almost certainly isn't causing any issues, or they'd have sealed it off completely. I"m pretty sure that was acceptable under building regs 15 years ago. It isn't now, but no one expects houses to be constantly up to date or hardly any of us could afford to live in our own houses and maintain them!

Hirdos

According to the Building Survey, the approximate year the property was built in 1935.

I am not sure how I would find out the exact year.

I want to know if I should or should not go ahead with the purchase due to the two issues above.

Doozergirl

All houses have some issues. These are par for the course and you can see that there are potential solutions in place to manage risk, precisely because they are common.

The house itself would never have had a building control certificate. I think once things get old and stand the test of time, they become less important.

No one else can tell you what you should do, but if your mortgage company are happy with the risk, then really, you can see that it isn’t a major one or they simply wouldn’t lend.

Hirdos

Thanks Doozergirl - the house would have had a Building Control completion certificate if they went to get it. Some inspections were carried out by the Building Control department. Now, I am not sure why they didn’t ask them to come around and do the final checks. Maybe they did some work which wasn’t as per the Planning permission?

We will find out if lenders are happy to lend or not in the coming days and take it from there.

Cakeguts

What are you going to do if the drain cracks due to slight movement?

Doozergirl

Cakeguts wrote: »

What are you going to do if the drain cracks due to slight movement?

The drain or the manhole? Why should it? The manhole is barely at any risk of movement, the drains at no more risk than any other house.

They’re having the drains checked, that’s the best that any of us can do.

ProDave

Doozergirl wrote: »

The drain or the manhole? Why should it? The manhole is barely at any risk of movement, the drains at no more risk than any other house.

They’re having the drains checked, that’s the best that any of us can do.

It depends how the foundations were built. If they stopped short of the drains and bridged over them with a lintel then you are correct. But with no building control certificate we don't know that.

This bit worries me:

" However this does not prevent them from taking action under s36(6) of The Building Act 1984, under which the Local Authority may serve an enforcement notice on the building owner requiring alteration or removal of work which contravenes the regulations. If the owner does not comply with the notice the Local Authority has the power to undertake the work itself and recover the costs of doing so from the owner."

So you have that hanging over you, and you don't even have the benefit of an indemnity policy to pay out should that happen. The unknown is how likely is that action will be taken by the council?

Hirdos

The letter did say that some checks were carried out and the Building Control told our solicitor that checks were done up to roof level were carried out.

Now, I don’t know how many checks there are in total and how much work must have been left after the roof level checks? This was based on Building Control regs in 2003.

We did ask them to explore the Regularisation option. But, LA Building Control department said this would be a lengthy process and will check everything based on the current regs and not regs that were in place at the time of the extension in 2003.