Partial Garage Conversion No Building Regs

viypr

Hi,

Wondering if I could get some advice please.

We bought our house 4 years ago, it had an existing partial garage conversion which was estimated to have been done in 2000, no building regs certificate was in the documents we were given but RSJ was put in and a kitchen installed so surely this would have to have been signed off on? The floor in this existing extension was just brought up to house level with no insulation.

Then 2 years ago we extended this conversion on 2 walls by around a metre. DPM was installed and floor was raised but not insulated. Stud walls were built with mineral wool insulation, new kitchen installed, boiler moved to the non-converted part of the garage and new UPVC french doors installed (lintel in place and doors same width as previous window). I'm confident the regulations were met regarding fire safety but not insulation, particularly in the floor.

We were a bit naive in not realising we would need building regs approval as builder never mentioned it and as far as we knew we didn't need planning permission, not realising building regs are different to that.

We now want to convert the remainder of the garage, but this faces onto the street and would require the garage door opening bricking up, so naturally we would be getting building regs involved now we know better. But, if an inspector comes to look at this I'm worried they will look at the kitchen extension and we run the risk of them enforcing remedial works which I imagine could run into the thousands. Am I right to be worried? Is there a period of time where even if an inspector did look at this they couldn't enforce anything?

Many thanks!

stuart45

There is a time period for an enforcement notice. It used to be one year, but has now been increased to 10 years. For works carried out before the change, it's still one year. Building Control have the option of going to the High Court, for which there is no time limit, but this would only happen in really serious cases.