Who's responsible for an illegal thing present in the project of the house?

Section62

FreeBear said:

Doozergirl said: As it is, nothing you are talking about is 'illegal' and the indemnity policy that I suspect you are talking about is to protect you should enforcement action take place.  Nothing else.  It's to keep your lender happy, more than anything.

And just because something is in breach of rules/regulations/covenants, it doesn't make it "illegal"

Something being illegal implies a criminal act - Planning & building regulation contraventions are generally breaches of civil law (unless it is a listed building or national monument).

The offences in planning and BC are criminal law.

The confusion usually is with planning where in the general case it isn't an offence to build something without planning permission, but it is an offence (criminal) to fail to comply with a valid enforcement notice.

Breaching building regs (e.g. Section 35, Building Act 1984) is also a criminal offence.

But generally I'd use 'unlawful' rather than 'illegal' in talking about this kind of stuff as the scope of 'unlawful' is wider - e.g. building something without planning permission (where required) is (usually) unlawful because the law says planning consent should have been obtained first.  But the development is still capable of becoming 'lawful' by retrospective application or elapse of time, and therefore isn't really 'illegal' in a strict sense.  Non-compliance with a valid enforcement notice is a specific offence and 'illegal'. (ditto for the listed building offences etc)

EssexHebridean

FreeBear said:

Doozergirl said: As it is, nothing you are talking about is 'illegal' and the indemnity policy that I suspect you are talking about is to protect you should enforcement action take place.  Nothing else.  It's to keep your lender happy, more than anything.

And just because something is in breach of rules/regulations/covenants, it doesn't make it "illegal"

Something being illegal implies a criminal act - Planning & building regulation contraventions are generally breaches of civil law (unless it is a listed building or national monument).

I’m honestly quite disappointed, on reading the thread title I was at the least hoping for a murder victim buried in the foundations…

Luke451 said:

Doozergirl said:

Luke451 said:

Emily_Joy said:

Luke451 said:

user1977 said:

Luke451 said:

cymruchris said:

If it was built donkeys years ago, and complied to the relevant regs at the time then it's not something I'd be worried about. You've only given very vague information so nobody will be able to give acccurate info. If the solicitor says it's ok - generally that usually means it's ok. Should the local authority force you to court next year, you could take it up with your solicitor who told you it was ok. As above - indemnity policies might be worth looking at if you're genuinely worried. I can't say I'm sure what a 'lightweight house extension' looks like - do you mean something like a conservatory that's being used as an extra room? Or a timber frame with plastic sheet roof and asbestos walls?

(Does this one have a sewer in the back garden?)

If my solicitor says it's ok and he takes the responsability, why do I need this insurance?

Can you tell us exactly what advice your solicitor has given? Because I very much doubt it's "this is ok and I take responsibility".

He just said it's ok , but it's not possible...

He didn't say he'd take responsability, but is this how it works if he made a mistake? If so, then I'll sleep almost without thoughts, at least from the legal point of view, but I still think that regarding the removal, any money to be pulled out will be on me.

Are we back to the sewer issue in your previous thread? The title deeds should contain permission to build over it from the water company.

No, this is different a different question, despite there is a sewer anyway.

The title deed doesn't contain such thing, I don't even think that the water company is aware of it.

From the sewer perspective, such thing can't be there, especially if there is plumbing and electricity around, if it was a dead box, fine, my expense to remove it but the water company wouldn't have raised it legally as long as I pay for it.

There are a lot of people here who know what they're talking about.  It's pretty easy to post the details and not give anything personal
away, so you need to do that. 

We can guess what you are talking about but I'm not sure that we should need to. 

All I'm picking up from what you have said is that you don't have the first clue what you are talking about. 

If you can tell us what you do know then we can tell you what we know too. 

As it is, nothing you are talking about is 'illegal' and the indemnity policy that I suspect you are talking about is to protect you should enforcement action take place.  Nothing else.  It's to keep your lender happy, more than anything.  

Other than that I have to refer you back to the 'may or may not post'. 

I believe I disclosed a lot in the following posts, probably you didn't read all of them, but it's fine.

Oh Luke, you mustn’t be so hard on yourself - I think I can safely reassure you that a large number of forum members are indeed reading every single one of your threads! 

As for the issue at hand here, and your solicitor’s advice. The solicitor advises you of any risks, and will give an overview of both how substantial those risks are, and what steps can be taken to mitigate them - for example Indemnity policies. They will - as already explained, give the details of the risk to both you and your lender if they act for the lender, or to the solicitor who is acting for the lender otherwise. Your lender may, if they feel the risks are too great, simply decline to lend (this happens with non standard constructions which occur from time to time, although less likely in a house of 12 years old) or they may say that they will lend dependant on a suitable indemnity policy being obtained by either you or your sellers. The final decision about whether to accept the risk on the basis of the advice given, and assuming you can still obtain the required lending, is yours. A solicitor cannot, and will not tell you whether to proceed or not - that is not their role. When someone reaches the stage of buying a property it is assumed that they are a grown adult who is capable of taking responsibility for their decisions - those decisions should be reached on the basis of advice given, but nobody is going to take the actual decision for you. 

Section62

EssexHebridean said:

FreeBear said:

Doozergirl said: As it is, nothing you are talking about is 'illegal' and the indemnity policy that I suspect you are talking about is to protect you should enforcement action take place.  Nothing else.  It's to keep your lender happy, more than anything.

And just because something is in breach of rules/regulations/covenants, it doesn't make it "illegal"

Something being illegal implies a criminal act - Planning & building regulation contraventions are generally breaches of civil law (unless it is a listed building or national monument).

I’m honestly quite disappointed, on reading the thread title I was at the least hoping for a murder victim buried in the foundations…

That would definitely be a breach of building regulations.

stuart45

Said to have worked well in the construction of the Great wall of China.

Boffinman

stuart45 said:

Said to have worked well in the construction of the Great wall of China.

......and the occasional patio.....

TBG01

I like to think the vendor is on here, complaining about how slow things are taking and that the buyers solicitor won't pass on the reason why there's delays.

Don't get me wrong, there are slow solicitors out there, but still baffling to me how that's the narrative for delays when you only need to look on here to see the amount of people who are squabbling over the smallest of things, or think they know more....

theartfullodger

Who's responsible?  Whoever did the illegal thing.... obvs.....

Luke451

TBG01 said:

I like to think the vendor is on here, complaining about how slow things are taking and that the buyers solicitor won't pass on the reason why there's delays.

Don't get me wrong, there are slow solicitors out there, but still baffling to me how that's the narrative for delays when you only need to look on here to see the amount of people who are squabbling over the smallest of things, or think they know more....

I'm not delaying the process for this, the process takes its own time and nothing can be done about it, unless it's about me deciding to buy or not, and it's not the case.

theartfullodger said:

Who's responsible?  Whoever did the illegal thing.... obvs.....

That's what I was trying to clarify.