Lack Of Building Regulation On Internal Wall

JakeMurray

Hello, I am looking for some advice.

Me and my partner are first time buyers and are quite far down the line with the purchase process (Receiving final report the coming Monday) Today we were informed that one of the internal walls that was removed in the property 1+ yr ago was done so with no building regulation certificates and have been offered indemnity insurance, which will be fully explain in our final report. We love the property and are in a position where we need to be in the property within the coming weeks due to our tenancy ending which was done in anticipation of no issues arising.

After looking at the property floor plan i am pretty sure the wall is a non-load bearing wall, however it still stands that it has no certificates. We are worried that in the future we could come into issues if the job was done poorly which the indemnity insurance would not cover us for or when we come to resell will be met with buyers being put off by this same factor. We are considering asking our solicitor to ask seller to pay for a structural engineer to come and inspect the work to provide a report saying the work has been done properly for peace of mind and to also be able to produce in future if a buyer were to ask the same questions.

Is this too much to ask for? Has anyone been in a similar situation or have any knowledge of what our options are or what is the best way to proceed.

Many thanks, Jake

davidmcn

How much longer than one year ago was the work done? It's of lesser importance as the years go by. In practice, indemnity policies are generally acceptable for this sort of thing unless actual problems make themselves known.

JakeMurray

I’m not sure as to exactly how long over a year as they weren’t specific they just said around a year ago (but definitely over the year mark) And that is our concern that problems may start to show but we’re not sure how likely problems are to arise with a non-load bearing wall removal I would have posted an image to show the job but I’m a new user so cannot post them

Doozergirl

If it isn't load bearing, it doesn't need any certificates...

busybee100

Is the a floorplan on rightmove? It might help someone decide if you need reassurance from a surveyor or engineer.

JakeMurray

I Can’t post any links in the chat for images or to the property as I’m a new user unfortunately

davidmcn

JakeMurray wrote: »

I Can’t post any links in the chat for images or to the property as I’m a new user unfortunately

You can, you just need to obfuscate them a bit so they don't look like links e.g. stick spaces in.

JakeMurray

Building regulation certification is still required for non load bearing walls as they still have to meet requirements for example as it may affect other aspects such as fire exits making sure windows meet requirements, needing more smoke detectors etc from what our solicitor has told us and what I’ve read on the building control website but I may be misinformed

Spriggan

We were recently in a very similar situation. But the issue for us was that it was in a block of flats with the council as freeholder, and they should have got permission. They offered us indemnity insurance, but the more we looked into it the less useful that sounded. We pushed them into getting retrospective permission, which they did with great reluctance - but that proved fairly straightforward in the end and I was glad we did.

Doozergirl

JakeMurray wrote: »

Building regulation certification is still required for non load bearing walls as they still have to meet requirements for example as it may affect other aspects such as fire exits making sure windows meet requirements, needing more smoke detectors etc from what our solicitor has told us and what I’ve read on the building control website but I may be misinformed

That's more likely with putting walls up. It can affect things like that, though, but it's relatively unusual.

You've mentioned 'property' several times but not what type.

If you post a broken link to a floor plan, we'll know better.

JakeMurray

Doozergirl wrote: »

That's more likely with putting walls up. It can affect things like that, though, but it's relatively unusual.

You've mentioned 'property' several times but not what type.

If you post a broken link to a floor plan, we'll know better.

The Property is a Semi-Detached 1950's build.
https /ibb.co/G3SFctd