Can I get buildings insurance without a completion certificate?

SavingDaemon

Hi all,

I'm in the process of buying a house which I have just discovered has an extension without a building completion certificate. Due to the extension having been completed before 2013, and the building inspections having been started but not completed, the council aren't willing to offer regularisation or restart the inspection process.

In short, we will never be able to get a building certificate for the extension.

The sellers' solicitor is offering indemnity insurance which will placate our mortgage lender but our bigger concern is whether we can get buildings insurance without a building certificate. Does anyone know if this is possible?

Thanks 

user1977

SavingDaemon said:

The sellers' solicitor is offering indemnity insurance which will placate our mortgage lender but our bigger concern is whether we can get buildings insurance without a building certificate. Does anyone know if this is possible?

You should be getting quotes for insurance anyway to help you budget, and because you'll need to put it in place soon (see elsewhere on this site for the guide on how best to do that). The comparison sites will take you through the questions the insurers are interested in. Those won't include anything about completion certificates. They don't care.

But bear in mind that buildings insurance only covers you for specific risks - which won't include the extension falling down because it was badly built.

SavingDaemon

Thanks for the reply and super useful. So in your experience, a lack of completion certificate wouldn't invalidate our buildings insurance policy?

user1977

You only need to tell insurers what they ask about. They don't ask this. It makes no material change to the risks they're covering. A huge proportion of buildings have had some form of unauthorised (or at least undocumented) alterations made to them - they're not uninsurable.

SavingDaemon

Rang up an insurer anonymously today to dig into the definition of 'incomplete building works' which appears in every policy I've seen to date and in their definitions a building without completion certificate has incomplete buildings works and so is uninsurable.

user1977

SavingDaemon said:

Rang up an insurer anonymously today to dig into the definition of 'incomplete building works' which appears in every policy I've seen to date and in their definitions a building without completion certificate has incomplete buildings works and so is uninsurable.

This is nonsense. "Incomplete building works" means something which is a building site. Not something merely lacking a bit of paper from the council from decades ago.

housebuyer143

How much of your response from the insurer was because of feeding them your issue? I doubt they just came out and said without prompt that this clause related to lack of building reg sign off.
Unless you spoke to the underwriter then the person who answered the phone probably just guessed tbh. 

Anyhow, insurers have to ask you outright anything they might need to know that will influence the claim when purchasing and if you tell the truth or make a false representation thinking it's the truth then they must pay out. They can't refuse to pay out because you didn't disclose something they didn't ask.

Certainly if your house burnt down they would not get out of paying out because you are missing a bit of paper, signing off the building work.

km1500

Well...

Suppose your extension catches fire because of faulkty electrical work or a brick letting water in and shorting out the electrics

Suppose a tile blows off your extension roof and injures or kills someone

You may be able to think of other scenarios.

user1977

km1500 said:

Well...

Suppose your extension catches fire because of faulkty electrical work or a brick letting water in and shorting out the electrics

Suppose a tile blows off your extension roof and injures or kills someone

You may be able to think of other scenarios.

Even if there was some sort of measurable correlation between "properties which lacked completion certificates" and such events, the insurers would have had to have asked the specific question on the proposal form. Which they don't. They can't wriggle out of claims (in consumer contracts anyway) on the basis of "if we had been told x, we wouldn't have covered it" if they never asked about x.

In practice I expect this sort of risk is mainly assessed by what era the property is (older ones being more likely to have e.g. foundations inadequate by modern standards, or other features which don't match up to current building regulations).

housebuyer143

km1500 said:

Well...

Suppose your extension catches fire because of faulkty electrical work or a brick letting water in and shorting out the electrics

Suppose a tile blows off your extension roof and injures or kills someone

You may be able to think of other scenarios.

You can do all your own electrical work inside the house and if that catches fire they will still pay out, because they don't go asking for proof an electrician installed all your sockets when you claim, as that's completely unreasonable and almost no one will have this.

SavingDaemon

user1977 said:

SavingDaemon said:

Rang up an insurer anonymously today to dig into the definition of 'incomplete building works' which appears in every policy I've seen to date and in their definitions a building without completion certificate has incomplete buildings works and so is uninsurable.

This is nonsense. "Incomplete building works" means something which is a building site. Not something merely lacking a bit of paper from the council from decades ago.

I have been unable to find a legal definition of 'incomplete building works' which is why I rang up the insurer. One insurer told me that not having legal consent ie a lack of building completion certificate was their definition of incomplete works another told me it was at the point that contractors left the site. 

The reason I'm checking is so that an insurer doesn't try to weasel out of paying in the instance that I go to make a future claim. I think this is reasonable, no?