Buying bungalow with 50 year old loft conversion…please help!

WIAWSNB

JoBanana1 said:

Hello
there is a window upstairs which will be replaced and big enough to get out of. Can I list it as a bedroom even if it isn’t up to current building regulations? Surely I can because every other house must be the same?! My old marital home definitely wouldn’t be! 

Is it a bedroom? Of course it is. Can you list it as such? Of course you can

Good news about the window.

Building Regs are not applied retrospectively. You can assume it 'conformed' on the date it was built, but of course that won't be to current standards. Most of my hoosie ain't either. 

If you find the upstairs room is poorly insulated - difficult to heat, temp drops very quickly when the rad goes off, condensation forms on outside walls, etc - then adding insulated p'board to the inside walls and ceilings is actually quite easy and will be transformative. Messy and disruptive, yes, but shouldn't be too expensive. Very DIYable too. 

BungalowBel

When I had my Victorian house, it had an original loft room with  newer velux windows in the roof.  I bought a loft escape ladder - it has handles on the top which you loop round your window frame, then you throw the ladder out and it goes all the way over the roof and  down to the ground, so that you can climb out safely.  When we moved, I gave it to my son who has a third floor flat - he can use it from his juliet balcony or any of his windows.

https://www.safelincs.co.uk/saf-escape-fire-escape-ladder/

JoBanana1

Thankyou so much everyone, I really do appreciate your advice and help…as you can probably tell I am a worrier haha! 

Is this just a massive case of me overthinking here? From what everyone has said it certainly seems that way! 

MysteryMe

You can use rooms as you wish, you may find though that if you ever come to selling, potential buyers needing a mortgage may find their mortgage company will only view it as a two bed and value it accordingly. Just something to keep in mind but if you are intending on staying put for some time it's not an issue and you can just enjoy using each room as you wish.

newatc

I think you are being sensible in thinking about your situation.
In the 1980s we bought a fairly large house advertsised as 6 bedrooms; four on the first floor and two on the second in effectively a large converted attic. The two on the second floor and radiators and shared a water basin in a common area between the bedrooms.
We converted a small bedroom on the first floor to an ensuite and a family upstairs toilet.
There is small narrow stairs between the second and first floor.
The survey we had done showed up many problems but very little about the second floor structure
The second floor bedrooms were always used as bedroom and our children loved them and we never had problem (we did put smoke detectors on each floor and changed the second floor wall plasterboard to be fire retardant).

For the first times in decades we got a valuation from local estate agent this year with thought of selling. We were disappointed with valuation and shocked when told that house would need to be advertised as three bedrooms with extra 2 attic rooms because bedrooms obviously wouldn't meat current regs. So the house we bought as a six bedroom house would now be a three bedroomed one!

We decided to put house on market (because of state of market mainly) but may do next year.

BungalowBel

Just want to say, we had no problems selling our house advertised as three bedrooms, with two on the first floor and an attic room on the second.  We did point out that we thought it was an original room, given the condition of the bricks, purlins and stairs.

JoBanana1

BungalowBel said:

Just want to say, we had no problems selling our house advertised as three bedrooms, with two on the first floor and an attic room on the second.  We did point out that we thought it was an original room, given the condition of the bricks, purlins and stairs.

Thankyou for this. Did you have paperwork for the attic room when you sold at all? I won’t have because it just wasn’t available at the time 

user1977

JoBanana1 said:

BungalowBel said:

Just want to say, we had no problems selling our house advertised as three bedrooms, with two on the first floor and an attic room on the second.  We did point out that we thought it was an original room, given the condition of the bricks, purlins and stairs.

Did you have paperwork for the attic room when you sold at all?

There wouldn't be paperwork for it if it was an original part of the house.

JoBanana1

Of course sorry silly question 

Albermarle

newatc said:

I think you are being sensible in thinking about your situation.
In the 1980s we bought a fairly large house advertsised as 6 bedrooms; four on the first floor and two on the second in effectively a large converted attic. The two on the second floor and radiators and shared a water basin in a common area between the bedrooms.
We converted a small bedroom on the first floor to an ensuite and a family upstairs toilet.
There is small narrow stairs between the second and first floor.
The survey we had done showed up many problems but very little about the second floor structure
The second floor bedrooms were always used as bedroom and our children loved them and we never had problem (we did put smoke detectors on each floor and changed the second floor wall plasterboard to be fire retardant).

For the first times in decades we got a valuation from local estate agent this year with thought of selling. We were disappointed with valuation and shocked when told that house would need to be advertised as three bedrooms with extra 2 attic rooms because bedrooms obviously wouldn't meat current regs. So the house we bought as a six bedroom house would now be a three bedroomed one!

We decided to put house on market (because of state of market mainly) but may do next year.

It is very unlikely that any part of an older house would meet current regulations. Including electrics, insulation, and any extensions or loft conversions.
What matters is that they are safe and fit for purpose.
With a loft conversion, a building regs certificate from 30 years ago is sufficient, or in the OPs case, even this is not needed as they were not mandatory/common when the conversion was done.

I suspect in your case, the original conversion was not done very well ( Maybe a DIY job) and the small narrow staircase has raised some alarm bells.

It is a bit of a grey area and usually the issue is  ( from threads on here) the EA advertising rooms as bedrooms without checking first about the background, not the other way around.