Potential house purchase, Dorma loft conversion, no building regs.

911bill

Hi All,

My wife and I viewed a house yesterday which we have fallen in love with. We are not really savy with the do's and don't and regulations etc, so please forgive my naivety here. Upon being shown around, the owner informed us that the loft conversion doesn't have any building regulations checks, something like that.. He said he didn't feel the need as he was in the industry and it has been there for over 10 years now so it may be ok anyway (not asked to rip it down).

I really did not know what all of this meant, so we came away in love with the house but a slight thorn in our side with this building regs thing.

It is not classed as a bedroom although it has a bed, I found planning permission for it and the requirements have all been met.

I understand that the building regs are to do with how it has been built, is it safe, fire escapes and insurance..

Can anyone shed any light on what we should do? We really want this house. :beer:

stayathomeandsave

see - https://hoa.org.uk/services/ask-an-expert-2/ask-an-expert-i-am-selling-questions/selling-without-building-regulations/

tom9980

If he is in the industry he should know how important building regulations are especially now, it makes me suspicious that he cut a few corners frankly.

lees80

I'd be concerned that he felt it OK to cut corners - lord knows what he's done elsewhere for customers.

Slightly strange that he sought planning permission for it but then skirted around the building regs. I'm sure if you ask your solicitor they will advise you, probably suggest an indemnity policy.

911bill

There is that risk, judging by the money spent on the house, fit and finish, I would be surprised if any corners were cut (In terms of the build), especially considering he has had 2 of his children living up there for the past 10 years but I can't make any assumptions and won't be taking a risk without further advice.

What can I do? I simple do not know next step. I just know I want this house.

lees80

911bill wrote: »

There is that risk, judging by the money spent on the house, fit and finish, I would be surprised if any corners were cut (In terms of the build), especially considering he has had 2 of his children living up there for the past 10 years but I can't make any assumptions and won't be taking a risk without further advice.

What can I do? I simple do not know next step. I just know I want this house.

Where in the buying process are you? Sold your current house? Under offer? Appointed a solicitor?

laptop80

911bill wrote: »

Hi All,

My wife and I viewed a house yesterday which we have fallen in love with. We are not really savy with the do's and don't and regulations etc, so please forgive my naivety here. Upon being shown around, the owner informed us that the loft conversion doesn't have any building regulations checks, something like that.. He said he didn't feel the need as he was in the industry and it has been there for over 10 years now so it may be ok anyway (not asked to rip it down).

I really did not know what all of this meant, so we came away in love with the house but a slight thorn in our side with this building regs thing.

It is not classed as a bedroom although it has a bed, I found planning permission for it and the requirements have all been met.

I understand that the building regs are to do with how it has been built, is it safe, fire escapes and insurance..

Can anyone shed any light on what we should do? We really want this house. :beer:

Firstly, as it's essentially a boarded out loft until signed off by Building Control, does the price reflect this?

If you're happy that you aren't paying for a room that isn't officially a habitable room then great, but bear in mind that if you don't get it signed off and do use it as a bedroom you're probably invalidating your home insurance if there was ever a fire etc (that would be my main concern).

If you are confident that it meets the regs from when it was put in you could get it inspected - this will be disruptive as they'll have to put it apart to some degree and there's the cost involved. If passed, this would solve the insurance issue and give you another (officially) habitable room, making your house easier to sell and more valuable. If it doesn't pass regs then you could be looking at expensive remedial work (so I'd want to be very confident it was OK before I involved Building Control at all).

A lot of people just leave it alone and use the room - it's highly unlikely there would be an issue, but the insurance aspect is what mainly worried me when we looked at some that had been done without regs approval.


I'd probably get a builder in that you know is knowledgeable about building regs to have a look at it for their opinion and then go from there - don't ask Building Control anything until you want them to inspect it, because you can't put the cork back in that bottle.

911bill

Hi Lees,

Current house is sold STC, impatient buyer applying pressure on us to get out.
AIP
Online Conveyance services (I-convoy who pointed us to Swift Solicitor) waiting for us to pull trigger on new house to complete paperwork.

Viewed many houses, liked this one the best, due to submit an offer but wanted to ask here on what I should do in relation to the loft issue..

911bill

laptop80 wrote: »

Firstly, as it's essentially a boarded out loft until signed off by Building Control, does the price reflect this?

If you're happy that you aren't paying for a room that isn't officially a habitable room then great, but bear in mind that if you don't get it signed off and do use it as a bedroom you're probably invalidating your home insurance if there was ever a fire etc (that would be my main concern).

If you are confident that it meets the regs from when it was put in you could get it inspected - this will be disruptive as they'll have to put it apart to some degree and there's the cost involved. If passed, this would solve the insurance issue and give you another (officially) habitable room, making your house easier to sell and more valuable. If it doesn't pass regs then you could be looking at expensive remedial work (so I'd want to be very confident it was OK before I involved Building Control at all).

A lot of people just leave it alone and use the room - it's highly unlikely there would be an issue, but the insurance aspect is what mainly worried me when we looked at some that had been done without regs approval.


I'd probably get a builder in that you know is knowledgeable about building regs to have a look at it for their opinion and then go from there - don't ask Building Control anything until you want them to inspect it, because you can't put the cork back in that bottle.

Wow, thank you for the excellent advice. I assume building control are working for the council and are the potential enemies here should they deem there to be an issue. I am happy that I am not paying for the room, we are not even sure what we will do with it aside from having a telescope looking through the velux window :rotfl: but we saw it as a bit of a bonus room. In reality, when our 5 month old boy is much older, I'm sure he would want it as his room if we are still there.

You can get into the eaves in parts of the conversion and there is still a loft to the front half of the house which would give some better viewing of the behind the scenes stuff.. I must say, the floors felt far more solid up there than the rest of the house!

Thank you for the advice, I will see if a builder can inspect to give us a heads up, I just need to find one that is in the know!

laptop80

There are certain things that it will be easy for you to check - if you look at the regs there are things in there about fire escape routes - e.g. windows that open so you can get out, enclosed staircases, that kind of thing. Knowing the exact date of the conversion is important as the regs have changed over the years - pre or post 2007 a lot of things changed.


Other things you can probably get a sense of - how springy do the floors feel? A lot of conversions just leave the ceiling joists in place instead of replacing them with proper floor joists (although you'd hope someone in the building trade wouldn't have done this).

laptop80

911bill wrote: »

Wow, thank you for the excellent advice. I assume building control are working for the council and are the potential enemies here should they deem there to be an issue. I am happy that I am not paying for the room, we are not even sure what we will do with it aside from having a telescope looking through the velux window :rotfl: but we saw it as a bit of a bonus room. In reality, when our 5 month old boy is much older, I'm sure he would want it as his room if we are still there.

You can get into the eaves in parts of the conversion and there is still a loft to the front half of the house which would give some better viewing of the behind the scenes stuff.. I must say, the floors felt far more solid up there than the rest of the house!

Thank you for the advice, I will see if a builder can inspect to give us a heads up, I just need to find one that is in the know!

Yeah, Building Control aren't really your friends in this situation. If you alert them to a potential issue the die is pretty much cast.


In ours we have an upstairs room with proper flooring joists then you can get into the boarded out eaves either side that use the thinner ceiling joists - you can notice how much springier they are and that there's a step down to them. If you're at the same height in the eaves and the joists are exposed you could measure them, but it sounds from what you're saying like that at least has been done properly.