Help, Regularisation Certificate

LisaDee

Hi, New user and first time post, finally plucked up the courage after reading the forums a bit and seeing that you are largely really helpful and friendly bunch, so...

My tale starts a few years ago, 18.5 in fact. When I bought my house It already had a wooden lean to on the side and a rear porch on the back door and an attached brick shed with window and door. The front door was actually on the side of the building and so the house could only be accessed through the lean to door which was essentially the front door.

17yrs ago I had a son, unfortunately, all was not well and he was diagnosed with PWS and thus is moderately physically and severely mentally disabled, over the course of the years we have had to make minor alterations to the interior of the house to accommodate him. I have subsequently had another healthy child, a daughter who is 9.

Anyway, A relative recently passed (3yrs ago) and I came into some money, so I contacted a builder to have the, (by now, 16yrs of no care) lean to converted to brick. Also We found a hydrotherapy pool for our son in a sale and thought if we built a conservatory then we could keep the pool indoors for use year round, we could also turn the shed into a bedroom for him and create a downstairs bathroom, so he could have dependant independence. So we spoke with a builder actually we spoke with several (had a nightmare with one who stole thousands of pounds, but we did get him prosecuted) anyway, i digress, the builder said no planning permission needed for either the lean-to, conversion or conservatory. Fab, we paid him and he built it. It's been stood for nearly 2yrs now.

Then this last 6 months our elderly neighbour (who we suspect has a bit of Alzheimer) has become really cranky and confrontational, claiming we have built on his water pipes, built on his land and had council out to us. Severn Trent, said no problems with water pipes, We got copies of our deeds to show that we had built within our boundary and that in fact the Neighbour has taken part of our back garden (which we aren't actually bothered about) but the council was a different matter.

Now when the builder left we still had our front door and back doors in situ. However since living in the house for 18mths with the building work being completed, we recently decided to replace with interior doors rather than have to keep worrying about Sammy (son) locking himself out of the main house (this is a normal semi, not a palatial mansion I should add).

I have since received a letter from the council saying i need a regularisation certificate, I am really worried and frankly it is stress i can do without. So have we done anything wrong? How serious is this? I spent my whole inheritance to try and make the house so that Sammy can live with me forever (shorter life expectancy 35-40yrs) rather than have to go into a home for adults and be away from us. What can I do. I ordinarily do not have a massive disposable income so fines and having to knock it down would cripple me not to mention the upset to the home.

Does anyone have any advice or know who i could talk to?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

molerat

You need to speak to your council building control. The work you had done required building control approval. A regularisation certificate is a way of getting this work approved after the event. Unless what you have done is really contrary to good practice / building regulations you are not going to have to pull it down. You need to ask them what they want from you - your council website should have all the details and forms required. They will likely need plans for what has been done and may require some uncovering / exposing of hidden parts of the work. There will be costs involved for the approval fees, usually the normal fee + 20 - 25% penalty, and you may need to employ a builder. https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200137/how_to_get_approval/78/pre-site_approval/4