FENSA & LArkins

ashcarrot

Larkins installed a large conservatory in 2003 on the house i want to buy. I think FENSA came in 2002. My solicitors as part of acting for the mortgage company are asking for the FENSA from the vendors (pretty much last thing as we've been in the process for a while now). I was looking up on the FENSA site and there is no entries for the property on their site (though the entries for other propertys are from 2005 onwards) so I was wondering if this means that teh conservatory isn't under FENSA? or they just didn't put it on the website until after 2005? I would have thought Larkins being a big company would have done this (I've got a "guarantee certificate and deposit protect" form but nothing else). I'm just trying to help out the vendors who have had this come up last minute (the alternative is an indemity for £200)

What ya think?

barnaby-bear

ashcarrot wrote: »

Larkins installed a large conservatory in 2003 on the house i want to buy. I think FENSA came in 2002. My solicitors as part of acting for the mortgage company are asking for the FENSA from the vendors (pretty much last thing as we've been in the process for a while now). I was looking up on the FENSA site and there is no entries for the property on their site (though the entries for other propertys are from 2005 onwards) so I was wondering if this means that teh conservatory isn't under FENSA? or they just didn't put it on the website until after 2005? I would have thought Larkins being a big company would have done this (I've got a "guarantee certificate and deposit protect" form but nothing else). I'm just trying to help out the vendors who have had this come up last minute (the alternative is an indemity for £200)

What ya think?

The FENSA guarantees are usually non-transferable i.e. onlythe person who paid can use them to follow up problems.... i.e. if you bought the house and there was a problem would the guarantee be valid?

ashcarrot

I suppose at this point I know its been done well but want to make sure the solicitors are happy. I see the alternative to a FENSA is local building control, is there some way of checking this online to see if its been obtained.

ashcarrot

well it seems like my vendors sorted it out (I called to Larkin to ask some qns but he'd already been), I would still be interested in know if theres somewhere online to check if its been approved from a local authority check/building inspectorate wise

Richard_Webster

The FENSA guarantees are usually non-transferable i.e. onlythe person who paid can use them to follow up problems.... i.e. if you bought the house and there was a problem would the guarantee be valid?

The FENSA certificate is not a guarantee! It is a certificate of compliance with the Building Regulations. If you put your own double glazing in and the Building Inspector passed it then that would effectively be the same thing.

When they changed the law to make double-glazing installations subject to the Building Regualtions, it was obvious that the building inspectors would not have time to check all the installations and the double-glazing industry didn't want the hassle of having to liaise with Building Control Departments so they came up with the FENSA scheme. The industry itself is allowed to certify compliance through the FENSA organisation and they control this by checking random samples of each company's work to make sure that they do know what they are doing.

What is the selling price of the property? GCS and Countrywide Legal Indemnities (very popular with solicitors) charge £200 for a Building Regulation Policy for properties in the £450K-£500K bracket. Legal & Contingency Online charges £155 for £450-£600K properties. If the property is significantly under those price brackets then the policy is too expensive and the solicitors need to shop around a bit

ashcarrot

The price is £249950 so obviously under that. I *think* it has been passed by the building inspector people as its quite a respected company that put them in (not joe bloggs down the road) so I'm hoping its resolved now (until the next issue;) that is).

Richard_Webster

If an indemnity policy is needed just for Building Regs then £75 is the going rate for a property worth £249,950 and some companies are slightly cheaper. Paying any more means the solicitors involved are totally out of touch!