Selling house without building regs

Hodges

Hi, I'm just in the process of selling my house. We had a internal wall removed in 2013 the builder who carried out the work put an RSJ in for support but didn't tell me I needed to get building control in to sign off on it, and I had no idea I needed to. I've read you can get retrospective building regs but it can take a long time and the local authority can make you put it back if they're not happy with the work?! This isn't a great option for me as I've just had an offer on the house. Anyone got any suggestions?

G_M

The council will need to expose the RSJ (hack off plaster etc)in order to inspect it.

Then they'll either say "it's fine" or "no it's not to the right spec, put it right or remove it and re-instate the wall."

Alternative is to offer the buyer an indemnity insurance. This will protect them financially from council enforcement, but not against, for example, the floor above collapsing. They might be happy with this. They might not. If doing this, do not contact the council - notifying them of the unauthorised work will make the insurance invalid.

babyblade41

Ditto everything above.. My biggest problem is that apart from the selling angle people are really happy taking really important walls down and not knowing the implications or getting the right people to do the job

Scary stuff .. the "open plan living" concept has a lot to answer for

FreeBear

babyblade41 wrote: »

Ditto everything above.. My biggest problem is that apart from the selling angle people are really happy taking really important walls down and not knowing the implications or getting the right people to do the job

Scary stuff .. the "open plan living" concept has a lot to answer for

Want a real nasty example of dodgy "improvements" ?
http://jack-kelly.com/insulating_our_victorian_living_room
All the rubble dumped under the floorboards. A structural supporting wall built directly on top of a wooden floor, then wedged up with random rubble underneath. And to cap it off, an RSJ that was woefully under size.

Lungboy

Hodges wrote: »

Hi, I'm just in the process of selling my house. We had a internal wall removed in 2013 the builder who carried out the work put an RSJ in for support but didn't tell me I needed to get building control in to sign off on it, and I had no idea I needed to. I've read you can get retrospective building regs but it can take a long time and the local authority can make you put it back if they're not happy with the work?! This isn't a great option for me as I've just had an offer on the house. Anyone got any suggestions?

If he didn't tell you about needing building regs are you sure you even needed an RSJ? If it wasn't a supporting wall he might have just been ripping you off.