Recently Bought House

Declan1992

Hi,

I bought a house with a mortgage through Halifax in December 2018 and I had the home buyers report and survey done and most things were fine.

Upon doing abit of work on the lean to conservatory and pulling up some of the flooring I’ve noticed the lean too is built upon garden paving slabs with a brick surrounding the outside of the lean to. Just a quick question, is this legal? Should it have been picked up by the surveyer upon his report? Or anyone?

How do I play this? Or am I over reacting and is this normal? :eek:

Davesnave

Is the lean-to in danger of falling down? If it isn't, I don't think you have grounds for complaint.

As a type of conservatory, this part of your property would normally be classed as an outbuilding or temporary structure and not subject to any building regulations. You seem to be saying it's foundations are paving slabs, but without digging to see what reinforcement is under them, it's impossible to know if they're adequate or not.

You give no possible age to this structure, but if it's not new and not cracking or looking unstable, whatever's holding it up is doing its job.

A Homebuyer's Report is mainly a tick-box assessment of a property, not an in depth examination of structure, so it's unrealistic to expect a surveyor to give something like an outhouse more than a cursory look.

Declan1992

The foundations are paving slabs as I bought the flooring up to lay new insulation and flooring.

The conservatory was constructed in 2001.

I was just wondering if no one in the process had done there due diligence and if the conservatory was constructed illegally as I thought it had to be a filled base rather than just sitting on paving slabs!

bris

A full structural survey may, just may, have ripped up floorboards to check but I doubt it. A home buyers report won't even move a sofa to check behind it.

AdrianC

Conservatories aren't subject to building regs, if they meet some fairly basic requirements - https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/10/conservatories/3

Since it was built that long ago, whether it met regs or not at the time is irrelevant to all practical purposes - there's no enforcement action possible.

So it comes down to whether or not it's about to fall down (it's not in nearly two decades), and whether or not you think you want to improve it.

After all, it hasn't changed since you first viewed the property...

Mr.Generous

Is it a single glazed lean to made from aluminum or a pvcu double glazed job? I guess the panels are either glass to ground or glass / pvcu rather than a dwarf wall.


The foundations probably are good enough for the build, rather like the foundations under a garden shed are. IE good enough for a none habitable temporary structure.

davidmcn

Declan1992 wrote: »

Upon doing a bit of work on the lean to conservatory and pulling up some of the flooring I’ve noticed the lean too is built upon garden paving slabs with a brick surrounding the outside of the lean to. Should it have been picked up by the surveyer upon his report?

Would it have been apparent without pulling up the flooring (which wouldn't be done in a standard survey?).

Slinky

Declan1992 wrote: »

Hi,


Upon doing abit of work on the lean to conservatory and pulling up some of the flooring I’ve noticed the lean too is built upon garden paving slabs with a brick surrounding the outside of the lean to. :eek:

I'm struggling to picture this, are you saying there's a brick dwarf wall been built outside the glass? Was that not visible at the bottom of the conservatory when viewed from the inside or have they built a false wall inside also?

Doozergirl

Declan1992 wrote: »

The foundations are paving slabs as I bought the flooring up to lay new insulation and flooring.

The conservatory was constructed in 2001.

I was just wondering if no one in the process had done there due diligence and if the conservatory was constructed illegally as I thought it had to be a filled base rather than just sitting on paving slabs!

You've been given the answer. A conservatory is an outbuilding, not a habitable space; there are no rules to comply with.

No due diligence, no foundations required, nothing. It's why they're cheap. If they were the same quality as a extension, they'd cost the same as an extension.

KatieDee

We had a Homebuyers Report and it identified that our conservatory was not toothed in to the property and there was some movement. The only thing that came from this was a suggestion that we had this looked into prior to exchange, which we decided against. As many have said, a conservatory isn't really considered part of the main building anyway.

I'm not sure you have any grounds to complain, but perhaps you could contact your surveyor and ask their opinion?

babyblade41

I have just bought a very old house with a full glass conservatory and it's not coming down .. It has a radiator in it , reasonable size, no drafts no leaks and I can sit in it in the cold days we've had since being here and look to across the countryside.

It's ally framed and must have been up at least 30 years .
My other house had a relatively new dwarf walled structure and it leaked, and even with heating it was cold, only useful as a greenhouse...