Loft no dormer no planning permission

Alan2020

I think living within the M25 circle in Greater London, I am not surprised at all.

Firstly the property is beautifully finished off and the glass and open tread stairs add to the charm.

The loft room obviously has no building regs sign off, its pretty obvious. Now they say 2 years ago, they had new roof, has this got insulation on top of the rafters? You need to find out.

There are several reasons they may have not gone via building control. Maybe not enough ridge height and planning will mostly not agree to increasing the height (also a semi). So if there is insufficient height the next thing is to drop floors, again an expensive and disruptive process.

So they may have kept it this way. Now saying that there is no fire door. Joists can be flitched or doubled. Now ultimately its up to you to see if this is OK or not. Most of the property we viewed had lots of illegal extensions etc lack of building control and so on. The reality is someone will buy it, so you buy and bring it up to standard and regularise it if possible or walk away.

I also doubt open tread stains may meet building regulations, you need to check things like the gradient etc.

elsien

So the loft room doesn't have a window, fire door or any means of escape.
That's a bit naughty calling it a two/three bedroom house in the description.

Cakeguts

The staircase from the ground floor the first floor is weird to. They have taken a wall out but not the ceiling because if they did that something would fall down. So you can still bang your head on the ceiling on the stairs when coming down.


I think £600k for a 2 bed is excessive. That isn't even the expensive bit of where it is.

bouicca21

It’s a room, not a bedroom. I think it’s a useful room in a lovely house. The question is whether that’s the right price for a 2 bed in that area. I suspect it might be, but you need to do your own checking.

You could try asking the seller for information about what was done during the conversion, but I’m pretty sure that it can’t be made compliant with modern building regs, because of the height. Thus you will never be able to sell it as a 3 bed and the EA is definitely out of line by describing it as a 2/3 bed house. OTH i’m not entirely convinced that the fire risk is unacceptable. But then, I’m an older person whose life has been riddled with risks that are no longer acceptable.

Alan2020

Yes looks weird the ceiling. However saying that is 600K expensive for a 2 bed, I highly doubt people are paying for the house, 3 ofsted outstanding primary schools, that's £10K a year saving per child on private school.

Before people start I think prices in London are complex as school drop off pick up is a nightmare and closer to the school the better. So i can see the price, and for a ready to move in house being in this ballpark

Tom99

looks like they may have removed the normal props and supports to the purlins.
The roof tiles have been replaced but it still looks the same level as the adjoining house.

ypapandr

Ok - given she would accept 585, maybe I could offer then ask surveyors to check and discuss price again. If it is a 2 bed with poor insulation, then the price should be more around 570.

ypapandr

Would the surveyor be able to check or would I save money and get to the same point by asking: were the joists beefed up and roof insulated, was it done in line with building regs and ask the same question re the stairs? My understanding is that surveyor won’t be able to find out without lifting the planks and that won’t be allowed I am sure. The added value of the surveyor would be they would put on paper the money for the work but the risk is spending 500 gbp and then walk away if she doesn’t want to bring the price down.

Cakeguts

Its a 2 bed house. It isn't even a family home so why would the schools matter? You can get a family sized home for less than this in the London area.



Here is a 1930s 3 bed semi. https://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-80073155.html 70k cheaper.

Alan2020

Well I had a quick look,
Not in catchment area of outstanding school (10k per year for private education)
That conservatory thing has a radiator, again illegal
That monster decking would never been allowed by planners??
No ground floor loo

So I doubt the OP is going to get a family house as such. Will get a wreck they will need to do up!!