Offer accept on a 2 bed house. 2nd Bedroom is loft conversion(?) - No paperwork.

Sovorel

Hello everyone,

I've had an offer accepted on a two bedroom house. However the second bedroom is a loft conversion(?). I viewed the house and I'm fine with it. However, I asked the estate agent if they had the paperwork for the loft conversion to ensure it meets fire regulations etc. I have now recieved two different responses to this.

1: Someone responded to me by email saying "The conversion was done by the previous owner and so we do not have any paperwork."

And then I called them this morning, where I was told by someone else. 

2: "That isn't a loft conversion. This is how the house was built, and every street on that house is the same."

Now, this is conflicting information obviously. But, also I can confirm with some certainty that every house on that street has the same room in the loft layout. Which could just mean everyone converted their lofts obviously... But I spoke to the neighbour who confirmed they have a loft room. And I've seen a house that sold on this street which has the same room in the loft. And I can see the houses have the same windows in the roof like this one does.

I'm unsure of what to do here. I like the area quite a bit. But what I'm worried about is if I come to sell in however many years time - I'm going to run into this exact issue potential buyers, aren't I?

I'm aware indemnity insurance is a thing, but that only covers action being taken by local authorities, not covering if something bad happens with the loft.

I've spoken with the council who have nothing on file about any of the above. They say it's possible every other house is the same. They also said the local authority is very unlikely to take any action. 

I don't know how to proceed.

Thanks for reading. 

AdrianC

A structural survey will look at whether "something bad" is likely to happen, as far as can be ascertained without ripping the house apart.
A home-buyer's report will look at whether there's evidence of "something bad" already happening.

If it was built like that, then the original building regs sign-off will have covered that space. When was the house built? If recentish, have you looked at the original planning apps?

Bear in mind the fire regs it meets will be those that applied at the time, if any.

What's making you wary about it? Just the paperwork angle, nothing about the actual space or construction or condition?

stig

Here’s a suggestion - and I’m being serious, not sarcastic. Try to articulate to yourself what the problem is for you with the loft bedroom that wouldn’t equally apply to every other room in the house.

is the construction safe? Surely that’s the same for the whole house. Get the whole property surveyed. If any rooms aren’t safe to use factor that isn’t the price and your requirements.

will you be chased by the local authority? That will apply  to any work requiring building regulations completed in the last four years. If it’s all older work, then  this isn’t a problem.

can it be described as a bedroom? Well, if it’s big enough to fit a bed in then yes. There’s no legal definition of a bedroom.

if you can’t find any reason to be more worried about the bedroom in the loft than, say, the structural integrity  of the retaining walls then you might reassure yourself it’s not a separate issue, just part and parcel of buying a used house.

Stig

Soot2006

Sounds like you're really overthinking this. My understanding is that by calling the council you now can't get indemnity insurance (which is worthless anyway but some people seem to like it).

How would you be feeling about it if you'd only ever had the second response i.e. it was built this way? Would you have given it a second thought? 

Many people, myself included, live in old loft conversions that were never approved, never signed off, etc ...

Sovorel

Thank you for the responses.

My concerns are about reselling I suppose. My intention was to use the loft room as an office anyway - I'd also ask guests to sleep in there or sleep in there myself with them in my room. So day to day, I suppose I wouldn't be all that concerned about it.

However - my intention is to make improvements to the property, which requires some modernisation all of which are comfortably DIY jobs which are adorable over a period of time, and then sell in a handful of years time to make a small profit and continue climbing the property ladder.

My main concern here, is running into this same issue with any potential buyers in the future - and the potential cost I might incur if *I* have to do the work to regularise this loft room to make it meet any regulations as a second bedroom. 

Soot2006

It doesn't have to meet new regulations as it's not a new construction. Depending on when it was built, it might not need anything at all. Pre 1984, I think ? As above, if you're worried it will actually collapse/be dangerous, that's a different matter, the legal side is not as black and white as many people seem to think.  I say this with full sympathy because  I did some structural work to an old property of mine, no sign off, and then worried about it for the whole sales process. In the end, the surveyor looked at the work, shrugged, said that looks OK, and never heard about it again. I could have saved a lot of stress.

AdrianC

Sovorel said:

...comfortably DIY jobs which are adorable...

Awww, how sweet...

My main concern here, is running into this same issue with any potential buyers in the future - and the potential cost I might incur if *I* have to do the work to regularise this loft room to make it meet any regulations as a second bedroom. 

You wouldn't have to.
They can't make you bring something that was already there up to current regs.
Their window for hitting you for breaches of then-current regs is very, very short.

If you do big jobs, THEY would have to meet the regs current at the time...

Sovorel

Apparently the house itself was built pre-1974.

So if the houses were indeed built like this to start with - there shouldn't be any legal issues?

I suppose I would feel more comfortable having this kind of thing in writing. So I can present this to a potential buyer in the future?

Is my best course of action here to get the homebuyers report done and see what they say?

Again, thanks so much for the responses I appreciate being able to talk to other people about this. 

Sovorel

AdrianC said:

Sovorel said:

...comfortably DIY jobs which are adorable...

Awww, how sweet...

*Affordable 🤦‍♂️ 

user1977

Sovorel said:

I can confirm with some certainty that every house on that street has the same room in the loft layout. Which could just mean everyone converted their lofts obviously... But I spoke to the neighbour who confirmed they have a loft room. And I've seen a house that sold on this street which has the same room in the loft. And I can see the houses have the same windows in the roof like this one does.

If they actually all look identical (rather than it being coincidence that they've all since had differing loft conversions) then surely that suggests it's part of the original construction? What made you think it was a conversion in the first place?

Give us a link to the property and we can have a more educated guess about what's going on.

Bad_Accountant

I hate this issue. We had a very similar problem with our current place. Loft is a bedroom. It looks original to the house and the other two houses built at the same time next door (2005) have identical loft rooms.

Our conveyancer wanted some kind of assurance from the sellers - I can't honestly remember WHY now. It was all explained at the time, something to do with the lender. The sellers had awful online conveyancers (Muve are terrible) who didn't understand the issue from what I could tell. It nearly delayed the sale so much we would have had to pull out.

Eventually the sellers said that it was original to the house and they hadn't changed anything, which seemed to solve the problem. They didn't provide any evidence, but it was enough for the conveyancer.

Maybe my solicitor was being picky and odd, who knows.

I'm currently sat in the loft ...