Buying a house with conservatory extension with no building regs

Kittley01

We've been in the process of buying this house for a couple of months and now at the end of the process (all searches back, mortgage approved, Homebuyer survey fine). The final enquiries have been answered regarding a lean to conservatory extension at the back of the house which was arranged for by the current owner. It's an extension of the kitchen so no doors between kitchen and conservatory but only one floor and the sides are bricks. Only the roof and patio doors are glass. The floor area doesn't exceed 30m2 as such they didn't need a planning permission as it's a small extension however our solicitor says they don't have building regs as such they're offering us a "lack of building regs indemnity insurance".

Does anyone have experience in a situation like this? Will this suffice or will we have a big issue selling the house in the future?

Thanks 

user1977

How old is the conservatory?

Kittley01

user1977 said:

How old is the conservatory?

It's approximately 7 years old. 

loubel

The insurance policy will cover costs should the council come after you for not having building regulations signed off. That won't happen though. 

What you need to establish is whether it doesn't have sign off because it wasn't built to the standard of an extension. Conservatories don't have to be because they aren't part of the house itself. It could cost a fortune to heat your house if there's an open conservatory attached to the kitchen...

Ask your surveyor what their thoughts are?

Doozergirl

Building Control and Planning are two separate departments. 

Planning deals with the principle of building a thing. 

Building Control deals with the quality of the building work.  A conservatory with no doors between it and the main house will be leaking heat like a sieve.  It would be classified as an extension and will not meet regulations in several ways, but your main concern right now is that it will cost a fortune to heat already, let alone when bills sky rocket in April and again in October.  You will literally be burning money.  

Your vendor needs to be paying for external quality doors to go back in between the kitchen and conservatory.  I would not compromise on that. 

Spreadsheetman

Doozergirl said:

Building Control and Planning are two separate departments. 

Planning deals with the principle of building a thing. 

Building Control deals with the quality of the building work.  A conservatory with no doors between it and the main house will be leaking heat like a sieve.  It would be classified as an extension and will not meet regulations in several ways, but your main concern right now is that it will cost a fortune to heat already, let alone when bills sky rocket in April and again in October.  You will literally be burning money.  

Your vendor needs to be paying for external quality doors to go back in between the kitchen and conservatory.  I would not compromise on that. 

Exactly. When we built our kitchen extension and attached sun room/conservatory we couldn't get building regs sign off until we had the right spec double-glazed (folding) doors installed to isolate the sun room from the main house. We had to delay final sign off until we could afford the doors as they were pretty pricey.

Thrugelmir

Kittley01 said:

Does anyone have experience in a situation like this? Will this suffice or will we have a big issue selling the house in the future?

Given the rise in energy costs. Days of cavernous open plan spaces may well be over. The ability to partition as required is one of my current tick list items. 

Mahsroh

We had exactly the same thing when buying our house. 

The Vendors admitted that they didn't approach Building Control for sign off when they had it built because they knew they'd have to put doors in and didn't want to. They provided us an indemnity policy. 

Surprisingly, ours hasn't had a major impact on energy usage.... but then the glazed roof is tinted which seems to help keep heat in / cold out, and the two side walls are brick walls with cavity wall insulation. 

Kittley01

Mahsroh said:

We had exactly the same thing when buying our house. 

The Vendors admitted that they didn't approach Building Control for sign off when they had it built because they knew they'd have to put doors in and didn't want to. They provided us an indemnity policy. 

Surprisingly, ours hasn't had a major impact on energy usage.... but then the glazed roof is tinted which seems to help keep heat in / cold out, and the two side walls are brick walls with cavity wall insulation. 

Hi, it sounds similar to the conservatory extension of this house. It also has two brick walls but the roof is tinted glass. Basically they removed the window and patio doors from kitchen and added a small extension less than 30m2. How long was the extension done in the house when you bought it? Thanks 

Mahsroh

Kittley01 said:

Mahsroh said:

We had exactly the same thing when buying our house. 

The Vendors admitted that they didn't approach Building Control for sign off when they had it built because they knew they'd have to put doors in and didn't want to. They provided us an indemnity policy. 

Surprisingly, ours hasn't had a major impact on energy usage.... but then the glazed roof is tinted which seems to help keep heat in / cold out, and the two side walls are brick walls with cavity wall insulation. 

Hi, it sounds similar to the conservatory extension of this house. It also has two brick walls but the roof is tinted glass. Basically they removed the window and patio doors from kitchen and added a small extension less than 30m2. How long was the extension done in the house when you bought it? Thanks 

Not long.... about 5 years before we bought it. We pushed back originally and told them to put a door in and go and get sign off but then their solicitors sent us a copy of indemnity policy wording which was surprisingly robust so we went with it. 

For us the energy bills aren't a major problem and hopefully you will find the same. But for your own peace of mind maybe ask for a copy of their most recent utility bill and see what the usage is. It's the right time of the year for it to give you a worst case scenario. 

Kittley01

Mahsroh said:

Kittley01 said:

Mahsroh said:

We had exactly the same thing when buying our house. 

The Vendors admitted that they didn't approach Building Control for sign off when they had it built because they knew they'd have to put doors in and didn't want to. They provided us an indemnity policy. 

Surprisingly, ours hasn't had a major impact on energy usage.... but then the glazed roof is tinted which seems to help keep heat in / cold out, and the two side walls are brick walls with cavity wall insulation. 

Hi, it sounds similar to the conservatory extension of this house. It also has two brick walls but the roof is tinted glass. Basically they removed the window and patio doors from kitchen and added a small extension less than 30m2. How long was the extension done in the house when you bought it? Thanks 

Not long.... about 5 years before we bought it. We pushed back originally and told them to put a door in and go and get sign off but then their solicitors sent us a copy of indemnity policy wording which was surprisingly robust so we went with it. 

For us the energy bills aren't a major problem and hopefully you will find the same. But for your own peace of mind maybe ask for a copy of their most recent utility bill and see what the usage is. It's the right time of the year for it to give you a worst case scenario. 

Thie conservatory extension was done 7 yrs ago so similar ish time as when you bought it. Our solicitor will ask the vendor for their most recent gas and elec bill. Thank you so much, really helpful.