Buying house - steel lintel, no building regs cert - not happy with indemnity!

FinleyV

Hello!

So we're buying a forever home and we love it. We've spent close to £2k on solicitors/surveys etc and we're virtually packed and ready to move. The current owner (a builder) removed a load bearing wall and put in a steel lintel. All sounds fine, no reason to doubt his work at all. The survey stated that no signs of stress or cracks were visible, but we should ensure that correct regs were followed and certified. They were not, or at least the work was not certified. 

The lintel is in the middle of the house in the kitchen, so critical. 

The seller has offered to provide indemnity insurance at their cost. Our solicitor is erring on the side of caution and said that we can accept this, and our mortgage lender would also accept that, but if it was him personally, he would demand the proper certificate. 

The seller's estate agent assures us that 90% of properties have indemnities and we should proceed (obviously). I spoke to the agent sorting our current house sale - he said that yes, indemnities are very common and not normally a problem but every now and then, a buyer pulls out due to them -he also noted that again if it was him personally, he would demand certification.

My main concerns are:

1) Safety - I cannot be certain that the work carried out is safe and will not fail at some point, despite being in place for 5 years.

2) Resale - I am extremely nervous about running into issues if we want to sell in the future.

3) Insurance costs - I assume I would need to inform our house insurer and concerned that either premiums will rise or certain exclusions will be enforced (i.e. no cover if the lintel fails)

I've told the solicitors that I'm not willing to proceed without the proper regularisation / retrospective certification. This obviously runs the risk of delaying and putting off our buyer, so its high risk. I guess I'm looking for people's thoughts on what they would do - would you accept indemnity or demand certification. Also, any ideas on how long it might take to get certification?

Thanks for reading. 

doodling

Hi,

This is entirely down to you. If you're concerned about safety then clearly you need to get it sorted for your own peace of mind. Having said that, the guy who did the work has been living there so they clearly don't share your concerns.

It is a reasonably sized and disruptive job to retrospectively get the necessary approval as plaster will need to be removed so that the details of the work can be seen. If there was any competition for the house then there is a significant risk that the seller will simply withdraw and sell to someone less concerned.

I don't think your insurer will care - check their small print but most won't cover the rectification of issues arising from defective works. If it does fall down, you won't be covered. Unless there is a question on the subject, you don't need to tell them.

The indemnity is worthless to you (but your lender may well insist on it). It won't stop a house landing on your head when you're making coffee and the chances of enforcement action (which is what it covers) are miniscule.

Personally I would take the indemnity and if I was still worried (I wouldn't be) I'd rip the plaster down the next time I was redecorating and get it signed off myself (having first consulted a structural engineer to confirm that the work was compliant with regs).

user1977

FinleyV said:

3) Insurance costs - I assume I would need to inform our house insurer and concerned that either premiums will rise or certain exclusions will be enforced (i.e. no cover if the lintel fails)

No, this is a common urban myth. Insurers don't ask about this sort of thing. But buildings insurance only covers specific risks, so wouldn't pay out if the lintel fails anyway, no matter what paperwork came with it.

FinleyV

doodling said:

Hi,

This is entirely down to you. If you're concerned about safety then clearly you need to get it sorted for your own peace of mind. Having said that, the guy who did the work has been living there so they clearly don't share your concerns.

It is a reasonably sized and disruptive job to retrospectively get the necessary approval as plaster will need to be removed so that the details of the work can be seen. If there was any competition for the house then there is a significant risk that the seller will simply withdraw and sell to someone less concerned.

I don't think your insurer will care - check their small print but most won't cover the rectification of issues arising from defective works. If it does fall down, you won't be covered. Unless there is a question on the subject, you don't need to tell them.

The indemnity is worthless to you (but your lender may well insist on it). It won't stop a house landing on your head when you're making coffee and the chances of enforcement action (which is what it covers) are miniscule.

Personally I would take the indemnity and if I was still worried (I wouldn't be) I'd rip the plaster down the next time I was redecorating and get it signed off myself (having first consulted a structural engineer to confirm that the work was compliant with regs).

Thank you very much for your thoughts. A major point you raised is the insurance - let's say worst case, it falls down in 3 years, I guess the insurer would look for evidence of certification and without it, potentially not cover the repair work - there's no way I could afford a bill for tens of thousands, so on that basis alone, I need to stick to my guns surely.

FinleyV

user1977 said:

FinleyV said:

3) Insurance costs - I assume I would need to inform our house insurer and concerned that either premiums will rise or certain exclusions will be enforced (i.e. no cover if the lintel fails)

No, this is a common urban myth. Insurers don't ask about this sort of thing. But buildings insurance only covers specific risks, so wouldn't pay out if the lintel fails anyway, no matter what paperwork came with it.

Thanks for your reply. I didn't realise this at all. 

Chandler85

Honestly, your choices are invasive job to get it signed off which the vendor probably won't entertain as you will be wrecking part of their house and then proceed.  There is probably other buyers out there who won't ask this.

Accept and indemnity and take the risk, which most people generally do, and there is likely to be someone else out their who will.  You could then smash the plaster off yourself and get it signed off later, but that is your risk.

Sticking to your guns will, depending on the vendor, probably lead to them re-marketing.

Thrugelmir

FinleyV said:

I've told the solicitors that I'm not willing to proceed without the proper regularisation / retrospective certification. This obviously runs the risk of delaying and putting off our buyer, so its high risk. I guess I'm looking for people's thoughts on what they would do - would you accept indemnity or demand certification. Also, any ideas on how long it might take to get certification?

You'll incur the same issues in selling the property. Any builder that isn't aware of the "rules" should be given a wide berth in my book.  Little more than a cost saving exercise.  What else is bodged but not visible......

scottie21

We are about to complete on our sale with an indemnity for the same thing (you’re not our buyer are you?). We know the works fully comply with regs, we ensured they did. It all came down to a communication breakdown with the builder who thought we didn’t want them (we did hum & ha a bit) and by the time we realised the work wasn’t signed off we had plastered and painted. Given that we didn’t intend to move we didn’t pull the plaster back down as we wanted to be back in the house for Christmas. Retrospective regs will turn the property in to a building site, I can’t imagine your buyer would want that, but it might be worth a chat with them directly. If you know the work would comply, you could take the indemnity & get regs later as someone else suggested (possibly negotiating the price of this in to the sale), or indemnify when you sell? 

Section62

Thrugelmir said:

You'll incur the same issues in selling the property. Any builder that isn't aware of the "rules" should be given a wide berth in my book.  Little more than a cost saving exercise.  What else is bodged but not visible......

This ^^.

The average vendor has some excuse for allowing a dodgy builder to hoodwink them into believing that structural work doesn't need building regs signoff.

But when the vendor is the builder who did the work then there is no excuse, and you have to wonder what they were thinking (and doing to the rest of the house)

If it were me I'd expect the builder to get the job regularised (it will be cheaper for them to do it as they can do the uncovering/making good themselves), otherwise I'd be looking for a different property.

TripleH

As above, if the builder has done the work himself AND lived in the property for a number of years after, I'd be less concerned than if it was a house he'd only worked on. There is no guarantee but what you get is that he was comfortable enough with the work he did to live there with the people most important in his life to him.

As for the paperwork not being done, this is sloppy but I view it as he probably forgot because the paperwork not being filed correctly and fully wouldn't have meant him not getting paid with him being too busy to get it done (see accountants getting their accounts done, solicitors and personal paperwork, either done on time or last minute).

Section62

TripleH said:

As above, if the builder has done the work himself AND lived in the property for a number of years after, I'd be less concerned than if it was a house he'd only worked on. There is no guarantee but what you get is that he was comfortable enough with the work he did to live there with the people most important in his life to him.

That would be a meaningless reassurance if the builder had no idea what was safe and what wasn't.

There are lots of foolish people who do dangerous things because they don't know or don't understand the risks, or believe it won't happen to them.

If the builder knew what they were doing, they would know the importance of having BR signoff for structural work.


The analogies with other professions would be more appropriate if the accountant was being paid under-the-table cash, or the solicitor was taking backhanders to give detrimental advice.

Not getting BR signoff is more serious than just being a bit tardy with the paperwork.

Poorly executed building work can kill people. The builder should know this. There's a reason for the rules.