Conveyancing problem (selling in Scotland)

tommyedinburgh

We accepted an amazing offer on our home on Tuesday. 

Both the buyers and ourselves are really keen to conclude ASAP.

The respective solicitors have been doing their bit this week. We received this at close of business on Friday:

The purchaser's solicitors have advised that the following alterations are noted in the home report; "open plan kitchen arrangement, attic conversion and kitchen patio doors."

Please provide copies of the Building Warrants and Completion certificates for these works. If these were carried out by previous owners, please contact the solicitor who purchased the property for you as they will likely hold copies of these documents.

We have the requested certification for the attic, it was completed before we bought in 2017. 

The kitchen is the way it is when we bought it, don’t think it’s been altered at any point prior to us either. 

We installed the patio doors in 2020. We were told by the installer we didn’t need planning as the new doors were going under the same lintl as the old door and window was under - which came out. I’m not convinced now this was accurate on their behalf.  

I’ve asked our solicitor if we could offer an indemnity policy. I don’t want the sale delayed or derailed by having to submit planning. 

Does this sound ok and realistic?

user1977

Note it's Building Warrants they're talking about i.e. compliance with building regulations, not planning (though it's possible planning also could be an issue).

For something done very recently, if it did require a Building Warrant then it's possible they'll ask for you to sort that out retrospectively. An indemnity policy will often be acceptable (though note the insurers will generally want a certain period to have passed after completion of the works - I think that's generally just one year, so work done in 2020 should be ok but worth checking).

Are you sure about the kitchen being the original layout? How old is the property? Might help if we could see the details/floor plan.

tommyedinburgh

Property is early 1900’s. Checked with my neighbour who has lived there 40 odd years. They say it’s been the way it is since the 1970’s. 

user1977

tommyedinburgh said:

Property is early 1900’s. Checked with my neighbour who has lived there 40 odd years. They say it’s been the way it is since the 1970’s. 

Should be fine then. The relevant condition in the standard missives says you only need consents for works done in the past 20 years.

sheramber

When I bought my house the previous owners had replaced a window with French doors 5 years before.  They did not get a building control certificate ( didn't realise they needed one) at the time and had to apply for one.

To avoid delaying the sale a sum equivalent to the cost was retained until the certificate was issued.

tommyedinburgh

We provided our buyer with the building warrant and completion cert for the attic. 

They accepted that we hadn’t knocked a wall down in the kitchen. 

We offered an indemnity policy for the french doors and they accepted that straight away. 

Full steam ahead now.