No Building Regs certificate for conversion in house purchase - urgent advice, please!

martymcfarty123

Hi. Urgent advice needed, please. I'll use bullets to try to be as clear as possible (excuse the brevity):

• We have had an offer accepted on a house.
• It has a bedroom that has been turned into a mezzanine via some of the loft space.
• It turns out that this conversion has no building regulation certificate. Surveyor advises that it wouldn't get one as its access is a pretty cool looking, albeit very steep ladder.
• Additionally, the vendor said they would not look to seek any approval as the sale documentation does not list the mezzanine space as being habitable (although it is currently being used as a child's bedroom, as illustrated on sale photos, video, viewing with the agent, and a follow up viewing with the person selling it).
• We're ok with this as we mostly plan to use the space as a reading nook kind of area.
• We are however concerned about issues when we come to sell the house (5+ years minimum).
• We are two weeks from completion (our solicitor has been on holiday and we never assumed there would be issues based on the videos/photos and whatnot).
• We still want to buy the property but are thinking about asking for a reduction on the purchase price.

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated! We want to do the right and fair thing - not looking to knock money off for the sake of it. The value is £335k. It's quite a small conversion. We are clueless about if we should negotiate the price, and if so by house much.

Any thoughts?
Thank you!

davidmcn

How long ago was the work done?

Is it actually a separate room, or just a mezzanine level within the original room? If it's just a fancy bed platform then I'm not sure what certification it actually needs.

ElizabethRose

martymcfarty123 said:

• Additionally, the vendor said they would not look to seek any approval as the sale documentation does not list the mezzanine space as being habitable (although it is currently being used as a child's bedroom, as illustrated on sale photos, video, viewing with the agent, and a follow up viewing with the person selling it).

It was never listed as a bedroom or habitable space so why do you expect a reduction?

I bought a house with an unofficial loft conversion and whilst there was a bed in there it was being sold as a 3 bed not a 4 bed so I offered accordingly. I assume you also offered based on the official number of bedrooms so I'm unsure what the issue is.

martymcfarty123

davidmcn said:

How long ago was the work done?

Is it actually a separate room, or just a mezzanine level within the original room? If it's just a fancy bed platform then I'm not sure what certification it actually needs.

It was done approx 3 years ago. It is part of the same room, but it was previously part of the loft. The ceiling has essentially gone (its now the roof with a skylight. Essentially its a half loft conversion into a mezanine bedroom.

ElizabethRose said:

martymcfarty123 said:

• Additionally, the vendor said they would not look to seek any approval as the sale documentation does not list the mezzanine space as being habitable (although it is currently being used as a child's bedroom, as illustrated on sale photos, video, viewing with the agent, and a follow up viewing with the person selling it).

It was never listed as a bedroom or habitable space so why do you expect a reduction?

I bought a house with an official loft conversion and whilst there was a bed in there it was being sold as a 3 bed not a 4 bed so I offered accordingly. I assume you also offered based on the official number of bedrooms so I'm unsure what the issue is.

It was listed as a 3 bed, but on the floor plans the mezzanine is not shown. We didn't spot this, but on all the videos and the tour it was presented as a living space. I do take your point though. We also assumed that there would have been at least some approval for the work done. There is no paperwork whatsoever.

davidmcn

I don't think it's competent for building control from the council to enforce lack of approval after 3 years (not that in practice they'd be interested anyway). Your solicitor will probably advise you to ask the buyers for an indemnity policy. Your surveyor can comment on whether there are actually any problems with the work done in terms of structure etc, which would probably be your only reasonable excuse to chip away at the price, I expect you've formed your own opinion about accessing it via a ladder, how well insulated it looks etc.

martymcfarty123

To clarify, its a 3 bed house, this is part of one of the bedrooms, it almost doubles its size and was a key selling point, but without those regs it can essentially only be sold as storage space rather than being habitable, usable area. As far as we understand it.

martymcfarty123

davidmcn said:

I don't think it's competent for building control from the council to enforce lack of approval after 3 years (not that in practice they'd be interested anyway). Your solicitor will probably advise you to ask the buyers for an indemnity policy. Your surveyor can comment on whether there are actually any problems with the work done in terms of structure etc, which would probably be your only reasonable excuse to chip away at the price, I expect you've formed your own opinion about accessing it via a ladder, how well insulated it looks etc.

Yes, it is structurally sound and we are fine with the ladder, we are just worried that in the future we may be affected at point of sale.

whirlyhead

Does the survey support the price you are paying?  You can always carry out works yourself to make it a proper bedroom - I bought a house with la oft conversion without building regs and just carried out the necessary works to make it a habitable room.  Which basically involved knocking it down and starting again, but your property's conversion was probably done a lot better.

davidmcn

martymcfarty123 said:

To clarify, its a 3 bed house, this is part of one of the bedrooms, it almost doubles its size and was a key selling point, but without those regs it can essentially only be sold as storage space rather than being habitable, usable area. As far as we understand it.

But it's space which was obviously within a room, rather than being an additional room, and only accessible via a ladder. And in practice, you can use it for what you want, the loft police aren't going to come round and stop you from sleeping up there if you like.

martymcfarty123

davidmcn said:

martymcfarty123 said:

To clarify, its a 3 bed house, this is part of one of the bedrooms, it almost doubles its size and was a key selling point, but without those regs it can essentially only be sold as storage space rather than being habitable, usable area. As far as we understand it.

But it's space which was obviously within a room, rather than being an additional room, and only accessible via a ladder. And in practice, you can use it for what you want, the loft police aren't going to come round and stop you from sleeping up there if you like.

Yeah, as I say we are happy to use it, it is just a worry for point of sale in the future.

whirlyhead said:

Does the survey support the price you are paying?  You can always carry out works yourself to make it a proper bedroom - I bought a house with la oft conversion without building regs and just carried out the necessary works to make it a habitable room.  Which basically involved knocking it down and starting again, but your property's conversion was probably done a lot better.

Surveyor says it would not be able to gain regs compliance in his opinion. Ever.

Petriix

The simple question: is the house worth (to you, and possibly your lender) what you are paying for it? You really don't need to worry about regs as long as it's structurally sound and properly insulated.