Advice on mortgage/no building regs

cparry1

Hi, 

We are purchasing a house, and we stupidly had terrible advice from a surveyor to enquire about building regulations. The property we are buying does not have building regs for an extension that was done over 25 years ago. 

We contacted the council and asked quite briefly if they had any reports or building regs for the house. 

We are now quite worried about not having building regs because we can no longer take out the indemnity insurance for building regulations. 

We really are not sure of our next steps and are worried our mortgage lender will ask for this, or we will be unable to sell the property if we wish to in the future. We do not want to pull out of the sale because of such a silly mistake! 

Has anyone got any advice on what to do or do next please? Would be greatly appreciated!

We are in wales. 

DE_612183

It's not a stupid question to ask about the regs - as they should be in place - if it's over 25 years they may not apply.

What did the council say about the lack of regs?

jonnydeppiwish!

I’d be really surprised if many houses had building regs from 25 years ago.  Wouldn’t worry about the indemnity policy for it.

FreeBear

jonnydeppiwish! said: I’d be really surprised if many houses had building regs from 25 years ago.

My extension, built mid 1970s, has building regs sign-off. I would expect anything as recent as 1990s to also have the relevant paperwork. It won't comply with current regs, but that is not a problem. It is also well outside the window for any enforcement action from the local authority (which the indemnity policy would have provided cover for).

user1977

You don't mention anything about your solicitor - haven't you had advice from them?

25 years is pretty historic, many people wouldn't be interested in paperwork for anything that old.

stuart45

Because there's no time limit for Building Control to get a High Court order to enforce regs, lenders like an indemnity policy. Although it's highly unlikely to ever happen it seems to be something they want in place.

cparry1

Thanks for the comments! 

My solicitor mentioned that we could get a bespoke policy, we didn’t initially want the policy, but it sounds like our lender wants one! 

The council did say that there was no regs in place and didn’t say anything else regarding it to be honest! 

We are going to get a full survey on the property anyway to make sure it’s structurally fine! 

We wouldn’t bother if our lender didn’t ask for this policy, but the policy does seem like a waste

FreeBear

stuart45 said:

Because there's no time limit for Building Control to get a High Court order to enforce regs, lenders like an indemnity policy. Although it's highly unlikely to ever happen it seems to be something they want in place.

As I understand it, the authorities had up to two years from completion of the works to initiate any enforcement action.

This has now been extended to 10 years under new legislation introduced 1st October 2023. Individuals also have the ability to bring claims against developers/builders up to 15 years after completion should they suffer a loss/injury/death due to defective and non-compliant work.

stuart45

FreeBear said:

stuart45 said:

Because there's no time limit for Building Control to get a High Court order to enforce regs, lenders like an indemnity policy. Although it's highly unlikely to ever happen it seems to be something they want in place.

As I understand it, the authorities had up to two years from completion of the works to initiate any enforcement action.

This has now been extended to 10 years under new legislation introduced 1st October 2023. Individuals also have the ability to bring claims against developers/builders up to 15 years after completion should they suffer a loss/injury/death due to defective and non-compliant work.

They had up to 2 years to prosecute the person who carried out the work.
They had a year to serve a enforcement notice on the home owner. 
However there's no limit if they apply to the High Court. Although this action is highly unlikely, it's theoretically possible, so lenders like the indemnity policies in place. The reason that they are normally so cheap is because they will probably never be needed.