Have I made a mistake contacting building control about planning ?

Bigphil1474

We had a dorma in the attic of our old house, put on around 1980. We did find the old plans for it, but it never came up in the sale as nobody cared about a 45+ year old dorma/attic for indemnity purposes. (The indemnity is to cover you from any legal issues, not to rebuild the house).

Personally, I'd speak to a builder if you know a decent one and see if they'll fit a stud wall and make it a proper 3 bed including the attic. A stud wall and a door shouldn't cost much.   

lincroft1710

Having access to the loft bedroom via a GF bedroom will put a lot of people off. If a vendor said "well you could put in a stud wall to create  a passage", my thoughts would be "why wasn't this done when the loft conversion was carried out, or at any time during the last 50 years?"

EssexHebridean

In response to the actual question about indemnity insurance, one of the questions that is asked when quotes are obtained for II is whether any contact has been made with the local authority relating to planning or building regs permissions. In your case, clearly the answer to this is yes.  This will however only give you an issue if the question of II arises, which it may not. 

When filling in the TA6, remember the value of "I don't know" for anything you cannot be reasonably expected to know allowing that this was not your home. 

Skint_yet_Again

Thanks @EssexHebridean I suppose my first instinct when we couldn’t find paperwork for the loft conversion was just to ask the council. It didn’t even cross my mind that it would affect a future sale in some way. Just hope if someone buys it they are a cash buyer or their mortgage company does not want an indemnity policy if it’s described as a loft room. 

Just out of interest, once / if a sale is completed can I then go and look at the planning archive if the matter is not resolved and we do not have an indemnity policy? Would like to know 

Edited to add does the 10 year rule apply. Just started reading about this. If it’s more than 10 years does it need an indemnity policy? Sorry not sure how it works 

dannim12345

If I saw a 3 bed but one bedroom is accessed via another I wouldn’t count it as a 3 bed - I think that is more the issue. If it looked ‘normal’ I don’t think the EA would have questioned the planning but it may have come up later. 

It could be worth asking a EA option if it’s worth putting up a stud wall. IMO it might increase value but it will also help as some people just won’t be able to picture what it will look like or won’t want to do the work. 

MeteredOut

Chief_of_Staffy said:

Dang, too late then. Unless you can find the planning records there's no way around it. You can't market it as a three bed.

There is no legal definition of a bedroom. You could market your own house as having 5 beds and no living room if you wanted to (and were daft).

If it works as a 3 bed house, then the OP could market it as that even without the planning records, but with the 3rd bedroom being off the 2nd bedroom, I'm not sure many buyers would truly see it as a 3 bedroom. At a minimum, I'd expect the price to reflect the cost of putting in the stud wall.

The OP should market it the correct way so that it sells for the best price possible, not because it doesn't have records from 50 years ago.

Chief_of_Staffy

MeteredOut said:

Chief_of_Staffy said:

Dang, too late then. Unless you can find the planning records there's no way around it. You can't market it as a three bed.

There is no legal definition of a bedroom. You could market your own house as having 5 beds and no living room if you wanted to (and were daft).

Whilst it's true you can call any room anything you like, if you market a room as a bedroom then the implication is that it is able to be lawfully used to sleep in. If a room doesn't have evidence of buildings regs / planning, etc. then whilst it might be perfectly safe, that legality cannot be established. The seller can of course do what they want, but if I were in that position I'd either market it as 2-bed or take some steps to establishing legality of the room prior to marketing as a 3-bed, such as a lawful development certificate or whatever might be appropriate.

Grumpy_chap

MeteredOut said:

There is no legal definition of a bedroom. You could market your own house as having 5 beds and no living room if you wanted to (and were daft).

That is not necessarily as daft as you suggest.
I think that type of thing is common in student lets.
I also know that our neighbour's house, 3 bedrooms (upstairs) and 2 reception rooms (downstairs) is used as a 4-bedroom by sacrificing one of the reception rooms.
I think a similar approach (assessing 1 of 2 reception rooms as bedrooms) may be the case in considering the "bedroom tax".

Chief_of_Staffy said:

Whilst it's true you can call any room anything you like, if you market a room as a bedroom then the implication is that it is able to be lawfully used to sleep in. If a room doesn't have evidence of buildings regs / planning, etc. then whilst it might be perfectly safe, that legality cannot be established. 

That seems to be making things very binary.
Do you think this property has planning permission and / or complies with current building regulations?
https://www.royal.uk/royal-residences-buckingham-palace

BungalowBel

We had a Victorian terraced house built in the 1850s, with two bedrooms on the first floor and  a loft room.  The loft room was accessed off the landing.

We assumed the loft room was built at the same time as the rest of the house, judging by the apparent age of the stairs.

The only paperwork we had was for a Velux window, put in by us.

The Estate Agent was quite happy to market it as a three-bedroom, and it was never queried.

I would change your EA.  Even if not original, no-one expects paperwork from fifty years ago!

user1977

Chief_of_Staffy said:

MeteredOut said:

Chief_of_Staffy said:

Dang, too late then. Unless you can find the planning records there's no way around it. You can't market it as a three bed.

There is no legal definition of a bedroom. You could market your own house as having 5 beds and no living room if you wanted to (and were daft).

If a room doesn't have evidence of buildings regs / planning, etc. then whilst it might be perfectly safe, that legality cannot be established. 

As I've already alluded to above, that's rather unrealistic unless you're looking at a very modern property. I'm in a building for which you will probably fail to find any sort of consents for its original construction, but it doesn't mean there's some doubt about its legality, or that there's even any point looking for consents.