Two-bed is actually a one-bed - mortgage in peril. Confused first-time buyer - what to do?!

nick_mac

If I was in your shoes, I would ask for a discount. Whatever the legal merits of this, when you try and sell the property in X years there will be a new buyer standing where you are now and having the same concerns - which might make the sale more difficult. Just my opinion! Buying a house is a big move and you have to be convinced about it.

Thrugelmir

retsinelg said:

(the exit route in case of fire goes through both kitchen and living room).

Having watched a neighbours house catch fire and burn through a few years back. Not something I'd wish to chance. Not that it'll be the fire more likely the smoke that's the real danger. 

AdrianC

retsinelg said:
I'll ask the surveyor which "conversion" work he think does not meet regulation.

I'll tell you for a fact that it won't meet insulation or electrical current regs, and almost certainly not disability access.

But, once again, current regs are irrelevant, because it's not being converted now.

Look, there's three aspects being conflated here.

1. Quality of original workmanship.
It's 20yo now, minimum, and it's not fallen apart.

2. BR.
Whether it was signed off back then or not is irrelevant - there's not a sausage the LA can do about it. Whether it met regs then or not is irrelevant when you're comparing against today's regs.

3. Lender's valuation.
This is the ONLY thing that might cause you a problem. And, right now, it's just a "might".

eidand

look, doesn't matter from what angle you're looking at this from, it's not a 2 bedroom property and it should be priced as one bed. Room in loft is not the same thing, current regs or not.  I would not entertain this idea at all.

AdrianC

eidand said:

look, doesn't matter from what angle you're looking at this from, it's not a 2 bedroom property and it should be priced as one bed. Room in loft is not the same thing, current regs or not.  I would not entertain this idea at all.

Blimey. That's news to me. Turns out neither our last house or this one have any bedrooms or bathrooms at all! And I grew up in a bedroom that didn't exist, too.

Look, it's exactly the same house as the OP viewed, and it's exactly the same house as they put an offer in on. They thought the space available was perfectly adequate value then, and it's not changed one tiny bit since.

You wouldn't have put an offer in. That's fine. The OP did.

in_my_wellies

Re: Fire exits
My son rented a two bed terraced student house, let as a three bed, the front room being the third bedroom. It needed an HMO licence. The council said as the exit from the stairs was via the back room and kitchen a fire exit platform had to be built over the lean-to/kitchen to escape from the back bedroom. My son occupied the front bedroom. When he asked how he would get out  the answer from the council was "students are young, fit and healthy, he can jump out of the front window!" 

seven-day-weekend

We sold our family home in 2015.   The house was built in 1857 and we had owned it for forty years.  It had two bedrooms on the first floor and  an original room in the loft, with original staircase.  It would not have met current building regulations in any way, shape or form.  

The EA was quite happy to market it as three bedroom, the buyers had a survey done, and although we had to take out indemnity insurance for a couple of other things, this was not one of them.  The sale went through with no problem.

retsinelg

I phoned the council, having decided indemnity insurance would make no difference to this issue. The council said that existing rooms do not need approval and therefore they cannot have any bearing over whether or not a room is a bedroom.

Surveyor disagrees but going with council on this one.

As for the price, I could probably haggle but tbh I'm buying at £77k and given the qualities of the house I feel I'm getting a good deal. I realise that's not quite the ethos of this site 😂 but at this point I just want a house and I might go into negative equity anyway given the economic outlook. I think the house I viewed, regardless of whether the attic room (which is my favourite room and I'm 100% putting my bed there!) Is defined as a bedroom. Were it a one bed, it's a very spacious one-bed so I'd still value the house around the same.