Buying home with loft conversion (2015-16)

lf89

Hi there,

I'm potentially about to buy a house with a loft conversion without building regs. The previous owner (not current, but prior) was a carpenter and did the work himself in approx 2015-16, it's supported with steel beams etc. It has insulation and appropriate headroom but doesn't have regs signed off. Is there a good information source anywhere on how much it can cost approx to bring loft conversions up to regs as a bedroom? I couldn't easily find information outside of 'new' loft conversion costs. 

Appreciate any/all insight.

Thanks

rob7475

It will all depend on how far off current regs the lof is. Things like, joist size, insulation performance, fire doors on escape routes and headroom at the top of the stairs will all have to meet current regs. If it had been built to current regs at the time, I'd be asking myself why the owner didn't get it signed off - they've effectively made the space worthless. 

lf89

There's no firedoor and probably other bits which won't be up to regs, or they'd have got it signed off exactly. If I were a tradie and doing the work myself , for myself, I probably wouldn't have cared about the extra cost needed to make it compliant. But that's why I'm inquiring about how to find out how much it would take now.

Not sure i'd go as far as to say it makes the work worthless, but I see your point.

rob7475

lf89 said:

There's no firedoor and probably other bits which won't be up to regs, or they'd have got it signed off exactly. If I were a tradie and doing the work myself , for myself, I probably wouldn't have cared about the extra cost needed to make it compliant. But that's why I'm inquiring about how to find out how much it would take now.

Not sure i'd go as far as to say it makes the work worthless, but I see your point.

Was the loft space advertised as a bedroom? If so and it's now become apparent that the space can't officially be used as a bedroom for mortgage valuation purposes, you should be looking to discount the house to take into account it has one less bedroom than advertised.

Depending on the area, I'd be looking to discount the home by at least £20k. You can then look at retrospective building regs once you've purchased. You may find that your mortgage lender will downvalue the property anyway if there's no building regs as they wouldn't be able to advertise that space as a bedroom should they need to reposess and sell the house

Section62

lf89 said:

Is there a good information source anywhere on how much it can cost approx to bring loft conversions up to regs as a bedroom? I couldn't easily find information outside of 'new' loft conversion costs. 

Budget for the cost of doing a 'new' loft conversion.

Unless the previous owner has provided copious pictures of the work as it progressed, to get retrospective signoff will require 'uncovering' of the structural work done.  Depending what is found initially, and the thoroughness of the BCO, the amount of uncovering required could be as much as effectively reverting the loft to how it was before the conversion was started.

Savings on being able to reuse some of the material may be offset by additonal costs to skip materials which can't be reused, on top of buying the replacement materials.

So the budget for a 'new' loft conversion isn't an unreasonable starting point - if you can get it signed off cheaper then that would be a bonus.

Also, don't fall for the assumption that a trader working on their own property will do the work to compliant levels.  They likely know the tricks and shortcuts that can be taken when nobody is looking, and if they are doing a job they know nobody will be looking at then they can employ these to the maximum.

lf89

rob7475 said:

lf89 said:

There's no firedoor and probably other bits which won't be up to regs, or they'd have got it signed off exactly. If I were a tradie and doing the work myself , for myself, I probably wouldn't have cared about the extra cost needed to make it compliant. But that's why I'm inquiring about how to find out how much it would take now.

Not sure i'd go as far as to say it makes the work worthless, but I see your point.

Was the loft space advertised as a bedroom? If so and it's now become apparent that the space can't officially be used as a bedroom for mortgage valuation purposes, you should be looking to discount the house to take into account it has one less bedroom than advertised.

Depending on the area, I'd be looking to discount the home by at least £20k. You can then look at retrospective building regs once you've purchased. You may find that your mortgage lender will downvalue the property anyway if there's no building regs as they wouldn't be able to advertise that space as a bedroom should they need to reposess and sell the house

No it wasn't advertised as a bedroom so that's not a consideration/worry, which is why I was asking how to cost the works to get it up  to specc for future valuations having an extra bedroom. 

lf89

Section62 said:

lf89 said:

Is there a good information source anywhere on how much it can cost approx to bring loft conversions up to regs as a bedroom? I couldn't easily find information outside of 'new' loft conversion costs. 

Budget for the cost of doing a 'new' loft conversion.

Unless the previous owner has provided copious pictures of the work as it progressed, to get retrospective signoff will require 'uncovering' of the structural work done.  Depending what is found initially, and the thoroughness of the BCO, the amount of uncovering required could be as much as effectively reverting the loft to how it was before the conversion was started.

Savings on being able to reuse some of the material may be offset by additonal costs to skip materials which can't be reused, on top of buying the replacement materials.

So the budget for a 'new' loft conversion isn't an unreasonable starting point - if you can get it signed off cheaper then that would be a bonus.

Also, don't fall for the assumption that a trader working on their own property will do the work to compliant levels.  They likely know the tricks and shortcuts that can be taken when nobody is looking, and if they are doing a job they know nobody will be looking at then they can employ these to the maximum.

Thanks, that's helpful re cost considerations. I figured it might be challenging to uncover how the work was done. The potential seller still has details for the prior seller so I may be able to inquire re details, so perhaps that could help. 

I'm not sure i'd fall for the assumption that a trader would do a bad job on their own home either! but I guess we can meet in the middle.

Simonon77

If it wasnt advertised as a bedroom, then it is just basically the same as a boarded out loft, so it will make no difference to the value of the house, so dont expect a discount. It also doesn't add any extra value to the house either.

If you wanted to convert it into a bedroom in the future, then get a builder in to give you quotes to convert from what is already there to meet the current regs. It will probably be cheaper than starting from scratch if it already has steels in place etc...and the insulation is good, so it may save you a bit

lf89

Simonon77 said:

If it wasnt advertised as a bedroom, then it is just basically the same as a boarded out loft, so it will make no difference to the value of the house, so dont expect a discount. It also doesn't add any extra value to the house either.

If you wanted to convert it into a bedroom in the future, then get a builder in to give you quotes to convert from what is already there to meet the current regs. It will probably be cheaper than starting from scratch if it already has steels in place etc...and the insulation is good, so it may save you a bit

Thanks Simon. No expectations of a discount here! Not in my local housing market anyway...

Functionally I know it isn't another room, so can't be costed as such. Like you've said though, given some of the required works have already been done, e.g steel supports and insulation, but obviously bits like mains wired fire alarm and firedoors haven't, i'm hopeful that it wouldn't just be a full conversion's cost. Perhaps that's naive though.

Probably best to just get a builder in to check when we're ready to consider the work. I was just curious if there were any resources or examples out there people knew of with relative costs etc. 

Section62

lf89 said:

Functionally I know it isn't another room, so can't be costed as such. Like you've said though, given some of the required works have already been done, e.g steel supports and insulation, but obviously bits like mains wired fire alarm and firedoors haven't, i'm hopeful that it wouldn't just be a full conversion's cost. Perhaps that's naive though.

This is the thing - you don't know the required works have been done.

There's more to it than just having some steel supports put in.  They need to be designed by a structural engineer, using the correct section and grade of steel for the load and span.  The ends of each beam need the correct supports, to transfer the loads into parts of the structure below that have sufficient capacity to carry the loads down to the foundations.

It could be the builder employed a structural engineer and somewhere the calculations still exist... but it is common for builders doing work 'off the books' to just have a guess at what size steel is needed based on past exprience.

You could get lucky and find the builder has put in the necessary support in the correct way (best case).  Or you could find the steels are wrong and need to be removed before putting new different ones in (worst case).

Therefore you can't assume regularisation will be cheaper than building from scratch.  It might be, but then again it may turn out to be more expensive.

lf89 said:

Section62 said:

I'm not sure i'd fall for the assumption that a trader would do a bad job on their own home either! but I guess we can meet in the middle.

If a professional trader has done a project which they should know needs BC signoff and not complied with their legal obligation to do so, then I'd say it was fair to err on the side of assuming they have probably taken other shortcuts on the project.

sevenhills

lf89 said:

I am not sure i'd fall for the assumption that a trader would do a bad job on their own home either! but I guess we can meet in the middle.

Not a bad job, just one that does not meet building regulations.
It may be that it was only for occasional use, so they felt that insulation etc was not important.