Lack of Building Reg Approval - will this be a problem when i come to sell

es5595

StandingInTheSun said:
I would ask the vendor to apply for retrospective building permission. You can even offer to pay for it if you're really keen (it's normally a couple of hundred). If they still refuse alarm bells should ring.

Retrospective planning permission (which is what I assume you mean by building permission) and building regs are two very different things!
I assume its permitted development so does not need planning permission, retrospective building regs certification is potentially possible, but generally very destructive and proves no purpose if its a structure thats been standing for 10 years+! 

The only possible concern a decade later would be the new windows, who fitted them? What certification/invoices do they have etc? And then use your best judgement. As pp have said, it is less likely to prove any issues selling as the passage of time makes any issues more obvious.

user1977

StandingInTheSun said:

ucl1986 said:

I am currently in the process of buying a house which lacks building reg approval for a garage conversion (2010), wall removal (2010) and replacement windows (2017). 
Will this make it difficult to sell the house in the future?

People here are quick to say no but the answer is "it depends".

Survey raised issues on a property we had been sale agreed on in relation to a lack of building certification for an extension, albeit one built 30 years ago. Solicitor advised this could make remortgaging or selling difficult. Vendor refused to get retrospective building certification and the sale fell through. Other buyers or solicitors however may not have cared given it had already been standing for 30 years.

I would ask the vendor to apply for retrospective building permission. You can even offer to pay for it if you're really keen (it's normally a couple of hundred). If they still refuse alarm bells should ring.

Sorry, but it's pretty absurd to be trying to get retrospective approval for something which is 30 years old. Apart from anything else, the regulations it would need to comply with are those from 30 years ago, not today - how many staff in building control can even remember what those are? They're certainly not going to be trying to enforce them (even if that were legally possible) so what's the point? 

If there were objectively speaking some sort of actual defect in the extension then that's something you ought to care about - and you can have that even if there was 30 year old paperwork saying it had consent!

Section62

es5595 said:

Retrospective planning permission (which is what I assume you mean by building permission) and building regs are two very different things!
I assume its permitted development so does not need planning permission, retrospective building regs certification is potentially possible, but generally very destructive and proves no purpose if its a structure thats been standing for 10 years+!

It is never a good idea to assume something is permitted development.

In some cases there may be good reason to ask a vendor to get retrospective BR on a structure which has been in place for years.  People tend to assume that building regulations are primarily about stopping the building falling down - but in reality there is a lot more relating to the safety and efficiency of the building.

For example, the passage of time doesn't mean that a garage conversion without any insulation will become any less difficult to keep warm. And when viewing it would be quite difficult to discover that difficulty if the vendor wants to conceal it.

Even if the conversion was carried out 10 years ago, I would see a lot of purpose in confirming that basic BR compliance had been achieved, if not formally approved.

user1977 said:

Sorry, but it's pretty absurd to be trying to get retrospective approval for something which is 30 years old. Apart from anything else, the regulations it would need to comply with are those from 30 years ago, not today - how many staff in building control can even remember what those are? They're certainly not going to be trying to enforce them (even if that were legally possible) so what's the point?

Without commenting on the sense or otherwise of retrospective approval, part of the training of BC staff involves understanding the development and history of BC legislation, and BC departments would have access to reference sources on the applicable regulations through the years. It is part of the job of recognising things that were done in the past and Ok then, and spotting things that have been done on the QT which would never get approval.

Buyers do sometimes get themselves fixated on using indemnity policies to overcome irregularities. Sometimes it would make more sense to get retrospective approval for work (bringing it into conformity) because it isn't just about having the paperwork boxes ticked - building regulations regarding safety of the occupants are there for a reason.

I wouldn't buy and live in a house with a serious non-conformity and pretend to myself that the indemnity policy will stop me or my family coming to harm. So in that kind of situation there is a lot of point.