Building insurance for small extension without planning permission or building regs

wdjw

Any support or advice would be gratefully received as I’m in a pickle.

I am about to exchange on a house and it has become apparent the side return extension has no planning permission or building regs. I think the former will be ok as it will fall under permitted development. Although I need to confirm.

The solicitor has ask the vendor to pay for an indemnity insurance for lacking of planning permission and building regs.

I think I’m comfortable with this although not ideal.

My main worry is how this might effect my building insurance. Ability to get and if I make a claim.

Any information on this would be very helpful.

The only other question is that I read you can get retrospective building regs done and the work signed off.

Does anyone have any thoughts on doing this?

Thanks

Jonathan

eddddy

wdjw wrote: »

My main worry is how this might effect my building insurance. Ability to get and if I make a claim.

It's not relevant to buildings insurance.

Insurers don't ask about building regulations, because it doesn't really impact on the likelihood of making a claim.

(Buildings insurance covers things like fire, flood, explosions, theft, subsidence, etc.)

And buildings insurance never covers damage resulting from poor workmanship or poor materials.

So if the extension starts falling down because it's badly built, you can't make an insurance claim - whether it has a building regs certificate or not.

If you're worried that the extension is badly built, you should get a survey done on it.

Unless the insurer asks about buildings regulations (and I've never come across one that does), I would avoid confusing a telephone agent by asking about it.

wdjw wrote: »

The only other question is that I read you can get retrospective building regs done and the work signed off.

This might be a very big task - ripping open bits of the building to see what's inside, digging down to the bottom of foundations to see how deep they are.

I'm not sure it would be worth it.

G_M

As above.


But how old is the extesion?

Yalpsmol

Bear in mind you cant alert the LA to the unplanned work without planning permission (say, to try and get retrospective sign off) without invalidating your indemnity insurance. So you have to decide which road to go down, really.

wdjw

The extension is only a few years old so why they wouldn’t adhere to building regs I don’t know.

wdjw

Thanks. All interesting but the fact an extension built only a few years ago without building regs is a headache for me and would be for any other buyers

wdjw

I know but I don’t think it needs planning as I think it would be permitted, just building regs sign off

eddddy

wdjw wrote: »

The extension is only a few years old so why they wouldn’t adhere to building regs I don’t know.

The extension may, or may not, adhere to building regs.

The problem is that the owners didn't pay, maybe, £2k for the plans and work to be checked by a building control inspector.

The reasons for this might be:

• They wanted to save the £2k fees

• They didn't know that they should have applied to Building Control, and their builder didn't tell them

• They've done some dodgy things which contravene building regs, so they didn't want a building control inspector to do an inspection