Indemnity insurance for a historic extension

kazzamunga

Hi - we're towards the end (we hope) of a painfully slow house purchase, despite having a cash deposit, living in rented and the house not being in a chain. At this late stage, our crap solicitor has raised the issue of the kitchen being a lean-to extension built more than 20 years ago, with no building regs cert. They brought this up with the sellers, who have a portfolio of rental properties, but apparently they can't afford/be bothered to cover this. So now we're deciding whether to sort that out ourselves. We want to do some work with removing the wall between the lean-to kitchen and dining room, and thought that if this is done, maybe the council will then give that a cert, and that will supersede the one not given previously - but is there a chance that they would come out, see the kitchen that is not in their records, and we could be liable to some sort of fine?  I'm not sure if something as low-key as replacing an existing wall with a steel beam requires a council presence? Also, do we have to get the indemnity before the purchase, or could we move in and then get insurance before the works, if need be? Confused and a bit irritated by the seller, as it doesn't seem to be that expensive and I always thought that would be something for the seller to sort, as at this point the house still belongs to them, and it's their fault if there is no record of the kitchen, not ours!!

davidmcn

The council isn't going to care about stuff from decades ago, I would stop worrying about them or indemnity insurance at all.

kazzamunga

Oh really? Why do the solicitors always bring it up then?

davidmcn

kazzamunga said:

Oh really? Why do the solicitors always bring it up then?

Because they're wanting to cover their backs. It's out of time for the council to do anything even if they wanted to, and in practice they have hardly enough resources to deal with their current work, never mind go around policing things from yesteryear.

AdrianC

kazzamunga said:

At this late stage, our crap solicitor has raised the issue of the kitchen being a lean-to extension built more than 20 years ago, with no building regs cert.

Which you knew about when you viewed.
Remember, your solicitor has never seen the property. So how did they find out about it? The survey flagged it?

They brought this up with the sellers, who have a portfolio of rental properties, but apparently they can't afford/be bothered to cover this.

Such is their prerogative.
The lack of paperwork hasn't been an issue until now. You were happy with the existence of that extension when you viewed and placed your offer.
Either buy the place as you saw it, or change your mind and pull out.

So now we're deciding whether to sort that out ourselves. We want to do some work with removing the wall between the lean-to kitchen and dining room, and thought that if this is done, maybe the council will then give that a cert, and that will supersede the one not given previously - but is there a chance that they would come out, see the kitchen that is not in their records, and we could be liable to some sort of fine?

Enforcement against lack of BR can only happen for a year after the work is complete. The LA can do nothing about the lack of paperwork for the old lean-to.

One thing's for sure - BR now is very different to 20+yrs ago, so what would have passed then won't pass now - so even if it had been signed off then, you'd need to do work to bring it up to standard now.

If you're going to do the internal structural work without BR sign-off, then...

kazzamunga said:

Oh really? Why do the solicitors always bring it up then?

A cynic might suggest it's because useless, unclaimable indemnities are nice and profitable.

kazzamunga

It's not an obvious extension really - it's adjacent to the dining room (which presumably used to be the kitchen) and could have been there for 50 years, I have no idea. Don't solicitors look at pictures of the houses they work on, which are readily available on Rightmove? And if not, why not? Seems a bit remiss.

kazzamunga

And before you say it, they're the conveyancing solicitors that see houses day in, day out - I am the newbie who has owned a single new-build flat and is now buying a terraced house. So I should be able to trust that they know more than me. 

AdrianC

kazzamunga said:
Don't solicitors look at pictures of the houses they work on, which are readily available on Rightmove? And if not, why not?

No. Because that's not their job.
They deal with the legal paperwork, and flag any possible issues with that.

The surveyor is the person who looks at the property and flags any possible issues with it.

Sometimes, the surveyor's findings flag something for the conveyancer's attention - as here, where the survey has made the conveyancer aware of the existence of an extension, so the conveyancer has asked about paperwork for it.
The answer is that there is none, and the vendor are not willing to get any.
That is a perfectly legitimate answer to the question.

As it happens, the lack of paperwork makes no functional difference. If it IS that long since it was built, then it may very well predate building regs as we now know them, so there was no sign-off required at the time the work was done.

eddddy

kazzamunga said:

And before you say it, they're the conveyancing solicitors that see houses day in, day out - I am the newbie who has owned a single new-build flat and is now buying a terraced house. So I should be able to trust that they know more than me. 

Conveyancing solicitors never look at houses (and they wouldn't look at Rightmove either).  So who/what alerted your solicitor to the 20 year old extension?

Your solicitor also acts for your mortgage lender. So you either need to convince your solicitor that the extension is well over 1 year old (e.g, by providing a surveyor's report) to show that enforcement is impossible, or provide an indemnity policy. An indemnity policy might be cheaper than a surveyor's report.

kazzamunga

The solicitor said it won't affect the mortgage, and we did of course get a full survey - we've tried to do it by the book even if no one else involved can be bothered. 
These solicitors are crap just like any others i've dealt with - a bit of research seems paramount to me, whether or not they are obliged to. My sister is currently buying and guess what? Hers are crap too. Oh, and I'm selling with another solicitor and anooooother shower of s*it. 

AdrianC

Are they "crap", or are your expectations just off?

You say the extension is not obvious, which I presume means you didn't twig it was an extension... and you have no idea when it was built. Yet you expect a solicitor to divine this from the photos on RM?

Don't forget, too, that the level of detail and number of photos on RM are a recent thing, and are extremely variable.
When I bought our last house, in the late 90s, the single sheet of A4 details had two photos. One was the front exterior. One was the living room. That was it.

When we sold it, we were very careful in the photos we selected for the marketing. If we'd felt something needed hiding (we didn't), it would simply not have been in the photos.

When we bought this place, there were entire buildings not shown in the photos - and one photo showed a summerhouse that wasn't even being left.

So are you suggesting that the solicitors should leave their office and visit every property? What would that add over the surveyor doing it? Just think about their relative professional skillsets...