Vendor claiming work was done prior to their purchase (photos suggest it wasn't)

KatieDee

We are in the middle of a house purchase and have just received the TA06 form back from our vendor. The property has a garage conversion and building regulations/planning permission has been requested for this. The vendor has responded stating that the garage conversion was done before they moved in, and therefore they have no paperwork regarding this.

Googlemaps clearly shows that three years after they purchased the property, the garage had still not been converted. I understand that the dates on Googlemaps cannot be completely trusted, but if they are to be believed, the vendors definitely did the work themselves.

The address isn't appearing at all on the local authority Planning Permission portal, so no requested have been submitted. There is a conservatory (built before they bought the house, so pre-2006) and the garage conversion, which did not involve any additional extensions.

Likewise, they had new windows installed in 2013 and haven't provided any paperwork for this. They say it isn't needed, but searching on the FENSA website it doesn't appear as though there are any documents matching their address.

I've run this past our solicitor but it's starting to panic me a little bit. We already have £900 legal fees from a failed purchase and we've instructed our solicitor to do the searches and preliminary checks for this property - I suppose I just don't want these issues to cause another problem.

Is it likely all this is just a bit of a hiccup, or indicative of bigger issues?

Cakeguts

Well what you know now is that the vendors aren't going to fall over themselves to tell you the truth as answers to any of your questions? Do you still want to buy the house knowing that all repairs could have been bodged?

KatieDee

Cakeguts wrote: »

Well what you know now is that the vendors aren't going to fall over themselves to tell you the truth as answers to any of your questions? Do you still want to buy the house knowing that all repairs could have been bodged?

Thank you for your input.

I did consider that perhaps it's a bit of a misunderstanding, or perhaps they didn't need permission to make interior amendments (which I believe is the case for garage conversions). Our surveyor didn't pick up any issues with the conversion and he seemed quite thorough. In fact, his comments on it were:

To the left hand side of the property a garage conversion has been undertaken in the past and this was undertaken prior to the current occupiers occupation of 14 years and we would estimate these works were undertaken again approximately 25 years ago. All building
regulation approval and planning permissions should be obtained and retained for your benefit
prior to entering into legal commitment to purchase.

My concern is more that they're saying they didn't do the work, when everything points to the opposite.

I'm just so tired of the whole process now. This is the second house we've bought which may throw up problems. I'm hoping there is a way around it, or perhaps I'm worrying prematurely.

getmore4less

Have you used streeview?
Sometimes that has history of pics you can check.

Is there a map view on the planning portal that allows you to zoom in on particular properties.

KatieDee

getmore4less wrote: »

Have you used streeview?
Sometimes that has history of pics you can check.

Is there a map view on the planning portal that allows you to zoom in on particular properties.

Thank you. It was on Googlemaps where I noticed it hadn't been converted in 2009. I'm not sure how accurate the dates on these photos are, hence why I want to give them the benefit of the doubt.

getmore4less

You probably need to look at the building regs part of the planning site.

KatieDee

getmore4less wrote: »

You probably need to look at the building regs part of the planning site.

Thank you for this.

I'm not able to view these on the LA portal, but I have just realised that planning permission requests only go back to 2007, and they purchased the house in 2006, so there is every chance that they're telling the truth. The only thing that doesn't add up now is the Googlemaps Streetview from 2009 showing the garage as still being there.

SG27

Doesnt matter whether they did it or not really. They still need to provide building regs and if they can't and you still want to proceed they will need to pay for indemnity policy to satisfy your mortgage lender (assuming you have one)

D_M_E

Go on Rightmove, select house prices and input the postcode for the property and press enter.
Next, select sort by address.

They bought it 14 years ago so if it was on Rightmove then then there could still be photos available to the right of the address, if there is a picture will show, click on it and have a look through the page that comes up.

SG27

My thoughts would be if they did do the work why lie about it? What are they hiding?

KatieDee

SG27 wrote: »

Doesnt matter whether they did it or not really. They still need to provide building regs and if they can't and you still want to proceed they will need to pay for indemnity policy to satisfy your mortgage lender (assuming you have one)

Thank you. Yes, the property will be mortgaged.

We plan to change the conversion again if we do purchase the property, adding a pitched roof (as the rest of the street have), which we will need planning permission for.

Is it likely to cause us any issues going forward? Maybe if we decide to sell? Or would it be okay as long as we got our work signed off?

The garage conversion does have a radiator in it, and it does seem to be of a high standard.

I just want to make sure we're not signing ourselves up for problems in future. I really love the house itself and we chose it because it seemed to be really looked after and to a high spec.