Illegal extension

Barrett112

Hello
im looking for any help or advice I could get on the below.
We bought our house 4 years ago and towards the end of the sale found out there was no planning permission for the kitchen extension. As I was due my first child in 4 weeks we stupidly accepted this and moved in. We had no advice from our solicitor regarding indemnity insurance and as first time buyers were a bit naive.

4 years later we have tried to sell the house and when a surveyor has come round on behalf of the buyers he has deemed the house unmortgageable as the extension does not meet requirements. He refused to produce a report and advised the mortgage company not to give a mortgage on this property.
So we were never told what the issues are with the extension. We think the extension has been up for about 6/7 years and have never had any issues with it. We had a surveyor come round and he said it might not be insulated properly but would need to put holes in the walls to find out.

What should my next steps be? Should I ask the council to come round and try to get backdated planning? And can I take any legal action against the person who sold me the property? I know we didn’t check the planning permission, but if the building is poorly made and we have to take it down it would cost us a fortune, we just don’t have that money 

pramsay13

Did you buy the property with a mortgage?

Speak to your local planning department and ask about retrospective planning. This shouldn't be a major issue if everything was done correctly. 

davidmcn

Are you confusing planning permission and building regulations? Did it even need planning permission at the time? If it doesn't meet building regulations, what exactly is the problem (other than the suggestion of poor insulation)? It's too late for the planning or building control departments at the council to knock on the door and demand you do anything about it. If e.g. the insulation isn't great, that's just the same in principle as any other part of the house which doesn't meet modern standards, not "illegal".

princeofpounds

This isn't a planning issue. The time for planning enforcement has passed. It isn't (directly) a building regulations issue either. Enforcement for that has also passed. Because of that, it's not really to do with indemnity insurance either.

The issue is the mortgageability of the construction, which is an indirect consequence of build quality that doesn't meet standards. 

It was a poor show of the first surveyor not to give you any meaningful feedback on what the issue was, although technically he doesn't have to as you are not his client. It's also a shame that the surveyor you employed doesn't seem to be able to give you a clear answer (although that may not be their fault, as they can't mind-read the first surveyor). Whatever the issue was, it's not something that requires holes in the wall to diagnose, as the first surveyor did not do that. But it may be something that can be guessed with significant certainty withour drilling.

I suspect it is quite likely to be due to the thermal quality of the build not meeting the mortgage lender's criteria. Top of my list of possibles would be a single-skin brick wall, which lenders are much less keen on than they used to be. There could be issues around insulation perhaps.

What can you do? Contact the buyer who had the lender commission the survey. Ask them what the issue was - they should have been told, at least in brief. Or, you could pay the surveyor who gave the zero-valuation to produce a report for you. Then you would know exactly. Or, just try and sell the property to another buyer, wait until the next mortgage survey, and see if the result is the same. It may not be - sometimes these things are down to interpretation, and not all surveyors notice the same things. Or, the result might be the same but you get some feedback. 

Davesnave

So two surveyors have looked cursorily at the extension and you still don't know what's wrong.

Time then to get a surveyor back, get them to drill the required holes and produce a report so you know what the issues are and how you might ameliorate some of them.

You probably won't be able to meet current building regulations for heat retention without major costly disruption so I'd forget trying to get building regs compliance and focus on what you need to do. Not every lender/purchaser will use that surveyor, and if it was a planning matter, it's too late for enforcement now.

Doozergirl

I wouldn't be getting in contact with the council. As above, you are confusing planning and building control.  Unless you're in a designated building, planning permission is deemed to be granted after 4 years of the extension standing.  

You want to make the extension mortgageable from a build quality point of view.  We can't really help with what to do if we don't know what the potential issues are.  Are the walls too thin, perhaps, for the surveyors to feel that they are a cavity wall build?   You might want a builder to do a bit of invasive investigation to establish how it has been built.  

If it had been converted from an outbuilding or it's a very small extension, the quality requirements might be less stringent.  

macman

No, you cannot sue the vendor for not disclosing any issues with the property. It's up to you to carry out your own inspection and survey. As long as they described the property truthfully, then there is no comeback. 'Caveat emptor' applies.

Barrett112

Thank you for all the answers.
Yes we were able to get a mortgage on the property but we only had the basic survey done at the time.
im not sure if it’s building regulations or planning permission that we need. When our estate agent asked the buyer what was the issue, all we were told is that the walls were to thin, therefore it wasn’t insulated properly and he said it was unmortgageable. 

We have sold the property again and have another surveyor coming soon, I’m just worried we’ll have the same issue, but hopefully as you said it could be interpreted differently. 

I think as the property is a wooden structure this is the issue with the insulation 

AdrianC

Barrett112 said:

im not sure if it’s building regulations or planning permission that we need.

Neither. The paperwork isn't relevant, this long after construction.

You need the actual problems identifying and resolving.

No, there's nothing inherently wrong with timber-frame. The insulation fills the gaps in the frame.