No Building Regulations Completion Certificate. Advice Please!

davidmcn

larryson8 said:

AdrianC said:

larryson8 said:

We need some advice. We put in an offer for a 4 bedroom terrace in August which was accepted. The loft was recently converted into a living space with ensuite in Feb 2015.
We received search results today and learn that there building regulation approval was issued, however no building regulations completion certficate was issued.
This really came as a surprise and we are not sure where to go from here. It is very strange as the vendor is a plumber by trade and should be well aware of this.
It is also advertised by the EA as a 4 bedroom semi detached.
Where can we go from here? Appreciate some advice on this matter?

Three basic choices.
1. Throw your hands up in panic, and run screaming for the hills.
2. Buy a useless indemnity policy that promises faithfully to pay for your legal costs in the zero-risk chance of any enforcement for lack of final sign-off.
3. Shrug, get on with buying the place.

Given that you know it was inspected through the build, you know it's up to BR scratch. So it's merely a question of the final sign-off not being done. There's nothing the LA can do about that, five and a half years down the line.

As far as what the EA called it in the ad... The EA details got you to view. If you didn't like the difference between the details and what you saw, you would have walked out there and then, not offered.

When you viewed, you could see the property, and how it relates to the properties on either side. You saw that before you put the offer in, and you offered based on what you saw. Right?

So what changed between then and now?

Without building regulation completion certificate, it is really a 3 bedroom.

It isn't really. It's a 4 bedroom, lacking a bit of paper to reassure you that the council aren't going to be knocking on the door and demanding you fix things in the loft. Which they're out of time to do now anyway. The conversion is what it is - did your surveyor have any concerns about it?

larryson8

davidmcn said:

larryson8 said:

AdrianC said:

larryson8 said:

We need some advice. We put in an offer for a 4 bedroom terrace in August which was accepted. The loft was recently converted into a living space with ensuite in Feb 2015.
We received search results today and learn that there building regulation approval was issued, however no building regulations completion certficate was issued.
This really came as a surprise and we are not sure where to go from here. It is very strange as the vendor is a plumber by trade and should be well aware of this.
It is also advertised by the EA as a 4 bedroom semi detached.
Where can we go from here? Appreciate some advice on this matter?

Three basic choices.
1. Throw your hands up in panic, and run screaming for the hills.
2. Buy a useless indemnity policy that promises faithfully to pay for your legal costs in the zero-risk chance of any enforcement for lack of final sign-off.
3. Shrug, get on with buying the place.

Given that you know it was inspected through the build, you know it's up to BR scratch. So it's merely a question of the final sign-off not being done. There's nothing the LA can do about that, five and a half years down the line.

As far as what the EA called it in the ad... The EA details got you to view. If you didn't like the difference between the details and what you saw, you would have walked out there and then, not offered.

When you viewed, you could see the property, and how it relates to the properties on either side. You saw that before you put the offer in, and you offered based on what you saw. Right?

So what changed between then and now?

Without building regulation completion certificate, it is really a 3 bedroom.

It isn't really. It's a 4 bedroom, lacking a bit of paper to reassure you that the council aren't going to be knocking on the door and demanding you fix things in the loft. Which they're out of time to do now anyway. The conversion is what it is - did your surveyor have any concerns about it?

The surveyor mentioned the below:
 "The roof space has been converted into a habitable space, with painted plasterboard ceilings and walls, with a carpet floor finish, all of which appeared to be in a good condition. There are built-in storage units providing wall and eaves storage, all of which generally appeared to be in a good condition however, it was noted that the main door to the loft room, is a 35mm solid core door, with 15mm doorstops and no intermittent seals and therefore, this does not comply with Building Control Regulations and we would therefore recommend that copies of the Building Control Completion Certificates be obtained by the legal advisors. Additionally, the structural steel work located in the eaves storage area did not have any fire protection."

28tsw

Splatfoot said:

AdrianC said:

larryson8 said:

We need some advice. We put in an offer for a 4 bedroom terrace in August which was accepted. The loft was recently converted into a living space with ensuite in Feb 2015.
We received search results today and learn that there building regulation approval was issued, however no building regulations completion certficate was issued.
This really came as a surprise and we are not sure where to go from here. It is very strange as the vendor is a plumber by trade and should be well aware of this.
It is also advertised by the EA as a 4 bedroom semi detached.
Where can we go from here? Appreciate some advice on this matter?

Three basic choices.
1. Throw your hands up in panic, and run screaming for the hills.
2. Buy a useless indemnity policy that promises faithfully to pay for your legal costs in the zero-risk chance of any enforcement for lack of final sign-off.
3. Shrug, get on with buying the place.

Given that you know it was inspected through the build, you know it's up to BR scratch. So it's merely a question of the final sign-off not being done. There's nothing the LA can do about that, five and a half years down the line.

As far as what the EA called it in the ad... The EA details got you to view. If you didn't like the difference between the details and what you saw, you would have walked out there and then, not offered.

When you viewed, you could see the property, and how it relates to the properties on either side. You saw that before you put the offer in, and you offered based on what you saw. Right?

So what changed between then and now?

You can still get the sign off certificate. We've just done the very same thing, 6 years after we started the build. The L.A. still has all the details. 

Did you get a certificate as such?

We are in a similar position and asked for the certificate found it was never signed off and the council said they can’t give us a cert but said in a letter they are happy it’s compliant. Is that what you received?

AdrianC

larryson8 said:

AdrianC said:

So what changed between then and now?

Hi there, when I put an offer in, it was for a 4 bedroom. Without building regulation completion certificate, it is really a 3 bedroom. It would mean more money to ensure it conforms to building regulations.

No, it's exactly the same as you viewed. The same rooms are there, and they're the same sizes. You can put beds in as many or as few of them as you like.

Building regs aren't cast in stone - they change over time.
Perhaps it would have met the requirements five years ago - but it certainly won't meet today's requirements, because they've changed.
If it had been done to the applicable regs ten years ago, it almost certainly wouldn't have met the requirements five years ago.
Just because the regs change doesn't mean you have to move a bed out of a room...

Splatfoot

28tsw said:

Splatfoot said:28tsw said:

Splatfoot said:

AdrianC said:

larryson8 said:

We need some advice. We put in an offer for a 4 bedroom terrace in August which was accepted. The loft was recently converted into a living space with ensuite in Feb 2015.
We received search results today and learn that there building regulation approval was issued, however no building regulations completion certficate was issued.
This really came as a surprise and we are not sure where to go from here. It is very strange as the vendor is a plumber by trade and should be well aware of this.
It is also advertised by the EA as a 4 bedroom semi detached.
Where can we go from here? Appreciate some advice on this matter?

Three basic choices.
1. Throw your hands up in panic, and run screaming for the hills.
2. Buy a useless indemnity policy that promises faithfully to pay for your legal costs in the zero-risk chance of any enforcement for lack of final sign-off.
3. Shrug, get on with buying the place.

Given that you know it was inspected through the build, you know it's up to BR scratch. So it's merely a question of the final sign-off not being done. There's nothing the LA can do about that, five and a half years down the line.

As far as what the EA called it in the ad... The EA details got you to view. If you didn't like the difference between the details and what you saw, you would have walked out there and then, not offered.

When you viewed, you could see the property, and how it relates to the properties on either side. You saw that before you put the offer in, and you offered based on what you saw. Right?

So what changed between then and now?

You can still get the sign off certificate. We've just done the very same thing, 6 years after we started the build. The L.A. still has all the details. 

Did you get a certificate as such?

We are in a similar position and asked for the certificate found it was never signed off and the council said they can’t give us a cert but said in a letter they are happy it’s compliant. Is that what you received?

AdrianC said:

larryson8 said:

We need some advice. We put in an offer for a 4 bedroom terrace in August which was accepted. The loft was recently converted into a living space with ensuite in Feb 2015.
We received search results today and learn that there building regulation approval was issued, however no building regulations completion certficate was issued.
This really came as a surprise and we are not sure where to go from here. It is very strange as the vendor is a plumber by trade and should be well aware of this.
It is also advertised by the EA as a 4 bedroom semi detached.
Where can we go from here? Appreciate some advice on this matter?

Three basic choices.
1. Throw your hands up in panic, and run screaming for the hills.
2. Buy a useless indemnity policy that promises faithfully to pay for your legal costs in the zero-risk chance of any enforcement for lack of final sign-off.
3. Shrug, get on with buying the place.

Given that you know it was inspected through the build, you know it's up to BR scratch. So it's merely a question of the final sign-off not being done. There's nothing the LA can do about that, five and a half years down the line.

As far as what the EA called it in the ad... The EA details got you to view. If you didn't like the difference between the details and what you saw, you would have walked out there and then, not offered.

When you viewed, you could see the property, and how it relates to the properties on either side. You saw that before you put the offer in, and you offered based on what you saw. Right?

So what changed between then and now?

You can still get the sign off certificate. We've just done the very same thing, 6 years after we started the build. The L.A. still has all the details. 

Did you get a certificate as such?

We are in a similar position and asked for the certificate found it was never signed off and the council said they can’t give us a cert but said in a letter they are happy it’s compliant. Is that what you received?

No, got an 'actual' certificate, via email. It says certificate of completion, with our councils name on the top and LABC. With reference numbers and dates etc, 

tweet86

When we sold our house we realised we hadn’t had a completion certificate issued, the work had been done 3 years earlier. We hadn’t realised the work needed signing off for the certificate to be issued as things were in a hurry at the last point of building before the builder had to move on to his next job. Luckily, it was just two things that needed signing off, the steelworks and the electrical work from the electrical certificate. It was able to be signed off with very little effort by contacting our original builder. If they had visits at different points during the building work there may be less to get signed off.