Buying a house without building regs for loft

sud7890

Hi

Am in the process of a house purchase and it has come to light that the loft conversion had the planning application granted in 2014, but, does not have building completion certificate. I met the seller face to face who is a builder and had built the loft. He said clearly that the Building control wont give a retrospective certificate as there is no fire door to the loft i.e, the stairs just lead into the loft as an open space.



He has photographs at the time of building the loft incl insulation, steel etc and also has the receipts of the steel beams. He is offering indemnity insurance plus willing to give me the photos and receipts for me to verify with a strucutural engineer and get a building survey done.



Will the structural survey be enough to ensure the loft is built as per standards? And does this come back and bite me when I sell onward?



Addtionally, he also mentioned that the BC wont approve this because there is no fire door to the kitchen as well. That has put more doubts in my head around what else might come up, so, I've asked him to get a retrospective done ... Can someone advise what is practically possible?

sevenhills

sud7890 wrote: »

He said clearly that the Building control wont give a retrospective certificate as there is no fire door to the loft i.e, the stairs just lead into the loft as an open space.

It might be ok to live in such a house, but I understand building insurance is required for a mortgage, I don't think its posible to get buildings insurance with complying to fire/building regulations.
If I am wrong, someone will be along very soon. Talk to your mortgage provider.

Bacon_Sandwich

If there's no fire door to the loft, and other rooms too, then is hasn't been built to standards. Simple as that. Tell him to shove his so-called loft conversion up his !!!!.

davidmcn

sevenhills wrote: »

I understand building insurance is required for a mortgage, I don't think its posible to get buildings insurance with complying to fire/building regulations.
If I am wrong, someone will be along very soon.

You're wrong. I've never seen a buildings insurance proposal form which asks about building regulations.

sevenhills

davidmcn wrote: »

You're wrong. I've never seen a buildings insurance proposal form which asks about building regulations.

What about when the house is valued, and the lack of conformity to building regs is noticed by the surveyor?

davidmcn

sevenhills wrote: »

What about when the house is valued, and the lack of conformity to building regs is noticed by the surveyor?

It's still not something you need to report to the insurer.

A huge proportion of buildings don't comply with building regulations (or there may not be any certainty about when works were done and which regulations were the relevant ones at the time). If insurers cared, they'd ask. They don't. They take on the risk.

(though there can be confusion because people don't understand what buildings insurance actually covers - it won't pay for you fixing a jerry-built loft conversion, for example)

teneighty

davidmcn wrote: »

You're wrong. I've never seen a buildings insurance proposal form which asks about building regulations.

Actually sevenhills has a valid point. Hidden away in the small print building insurance policies require the property to well maintained and built to appropriate statutory regulations in force at the time of construction.

So in theory if the property in question has a fire and the insurance company find out that the loft conversion did not comply with the necessary fire precautions requirements when it was converted then they can refuse the claim.

Seems a rather academic point. What I am wondering is which member of the family you are going to put in the death trap loft bedroom?

davidmcn

teneighty wrote: »

Actually sevenhills has a valid point. Hidden away in the small print building insurance policies require the property to well maintained and built to appropriate statutory regulations in force at the time of construction.

My policy (with one of the larger insurers) doesn't say anything about statutory regulations - can you give an example of one which does?

sevenhills

teneighty wrote: »

Seems a rather academic point. What I am wondering is which member of the family you are going to put in the death trap loft bedroom?

I am surprised that a builder, he owns the house, would do work without building regs.

sud7890

Funnily enough the valuation came back all ok.. My solicitor said he will report it to the bank and let them decide if they want to offer or not. But that does not satify my worry about the loft falling off.. Indemnity wont cover loft repairs afaik

Rambosmum

An indemnity policy will only insurance against unknown breeches of building regs.

If it 'just' the lack of a fire door, for the sake of ~£150 why can't he put one in and get sign off? he has the evidence it has been done properly (we've previously successfully used photos as evidence). I'd be more concerned that he won't get it done.