Indemnity insurance for garden home office

zsreech

Hello All,

I am in the last phase of buying a house before exchanging the contracts. I had a question about one thing which my solicitor mentioned today, so I wanted to ask here.

The house I am purchasing falls under a conservation area, and I can the list of modifications and alterations they have done listed under planning permissions on the council website and also from the permission documents they have submitted to us. But the current sellers have installed a small free standing garden office in the back garden in 2012.
In the property information form(TA6) which they have given us, they have mentioned this and have written it as within permitted development. But I can't see the mention of the garden office in the permitted development list on the council website or in the permission documents they have shared with us.

My solicitors advice: My solicitor advised to me that since it's a conservation area, they should ideally have taken permission for that change, so we have 2 options

1)Go to the sellers and enquire about it (And they might contact the council to get it sorted)

2)Buy an Indemnity insurance for this and proceed with the purchase

My solicitor has suggested that this should not be an issue as the office has been there since 2012, and we can proceed with the indemnity insurance route ourselves. As, if we approach the seller and they inform the council, we will lose the clause for the indemnity insurance. 

My solicitor says it should all be fine and has mentioned, she will get back with the quote for the indemnity insurance for my case by checking with the insurance provider.
Is it ook to proceed with this approach? Will it be an issue for me in the future?

Thanks.

Mark_d

To help your purchase go smoothly, it's fairly standard for your solicitor to purchase indemnity insurance.   Nothing too unusual here

user1977

If it's been there since 2012 (do you have something to back that up?) then the council would be out of time to enforce it anyway.

zsreech

user1977 said:

If it's been there since 2012 (do you have something to back that up?) then the council would be out of time to enforce it anyway.

I have been provided the paid invoice used for its construction in 2012 by the sellers.
Also not sure if it helps, but I also see the garden office structure in the map(Ordinance survey map) shown in land search document shared by our solicitors as part of the initial search documents.

user1977

It would seem unlikely that anybody would suddenly take objection to it 13 years down the line, even if that were legally possible.

zsreech

user1977 said:

It would seem unlikely that anybody would suddenly take objection to it 13 years down the line, even if that were legally possible.

So, having an Indemnity insurance and proceeding would be a right approach here?

user1977

zsreech said:

user1977 said:

It would seem unlikely that anybody would suddenly take objection to it 13 years down the line, even if that were legally possible.

So, having an Indemnity insurance and proceeding would be a right approach here?

Yes, if anything that seems more than you need to do given it looks like a non-risk (but if you're buying with a mortgage then the solicitor may insist there's at least an indemnity policy in place).

zsreech

user1977 said:

zsreech said:

user1977 said:

It would seem unlikely that anybody would suddenly take objection to it 13 years down the line, even if that were legally possible.

So, having an Indemnity insurance and proceeding would be a right approach here?

Yes, if anything that seems more than you need to do given it looks like a non-risk (but if you're buying with a mortgage then the solicitor may insist there's at least an indemnity policy in place).

Thanks for your response