Scottish Lift issue: sunroom

Nives

Hi everyone, sorry for any grammar mistake, I'm not english mothertongue.

I'll try to explain our situation: me and my partner are in process to buy a 3 bed house in Scotland, with help of Scottish Lift, initiative for first time buyer.
This house has a sunroom in which glass roof was replaced in the past with concrete (I think that is concrete) roof.
But the sunroom in mostly made in PVC and glass, like any other sunroom.
Moreover, is off the kitchen (just a French door separetes kitchen from the sunroom) and, obviusly, linked to garden by another french door .
I know that scottish Building Regulations says that a sunroom can't be considered an habitable room (indeed, as I read on some topic here, if you want to build an additional room, you can't work on sunroom/conservatories with this purpose) because of material and lack of privacy.
But LIFT agency says that the concrete roof made it an habitable room.
The point is that we can buy an house with max 4 room (3 bed and 1 living room), in accordance with LIFT regulation, and this sunroom now is considered another room.
Our advisor is trying to fix this situation, but we are really stressed: we are risking to lose this house close to the exchange

Do you have any advice for us? What can we do?

Thanks in advance!
Cheers!

Davesnave

No idea about Scottish Lift, but if Scottish building regs are anything like English ones, adding a concrete (tile) roof to a sun room made of UPVC/glass would not enable it to meet building regulations for thermal efficiency in the walls and floor. It would therefore still be technically an outbuilding.

This LIFT agency needs to speak with a local building inspector from the council where the house is situated, who could confirm the above.

When I recently converted my single wall garage to a habitable bedroom/bathroom, I had to create insulated cavity walls and insulate the floor in order to meet the U values required for status as a habitable room. That was in addition to insulating the (concerete tiled) roof space.

Nives

Thanks for your reply Davesnave!

I think that scottish Building Regulations are pretty similar to english ones, I found also a document in which an architect says that another standard to make a room an habitable room is the privacy: as the sunroom has many glasses, privacy standard is not respected.

The only thing that could complicate the situation is that this sunroom has radiator and electricity, now we have to wait monday for further information by our advisor.

We are really scared and stressed, our first time buyer experience is turning in a complete nightmare...:(