Building regulations Indemnity Insurance Advice

SquirrelJ

I was worried when buying my house that the loft wasn’t officially completed the bloke selling the house said that it was an original part of the house as far as he was concerned.

I have had a council officer around and he has confirmed that it isn’t originally part of the house and some of the issues being-

Loft stairs too steep
Loft stairs not opening into 2m of height
A skylight that would of needed planning permission

The house was sold with this space being described as a useful room it has electricity in it but only the 1 light and no central heating.

Now I want to make this into a 3rd bedroom and understand a lot of the changes I will have to make but I was unsure about the stairs as I feel that this is an issue that my insurance should cover. Is this correct or am I wrong???


I have rung my solicitors up but the lady who I dealt with is on holiday all week so I was after a little advice.


Thank You

silvercar

Post on the housing board and also search old thread on there. This issue has come up before.

By already speaking to the council, any indemnity insurance would be worthless as:

a) you've already told them there is a problem;
b) indemnity insurance only covers you for the council taking action and enforcing you to do repairs, it doesn't cover you for inadequate work.

To get a building regs certificate you have to comply with the regs in force at the time. So if you want a certificate now, you have to comply with current regs. In all likelihood, the regs were different when the loft was originally converted, had an appication been made it may have complied then.

In order for estate agents to accurately describe the room as a bedroom it has to comply with the regs and have a certificate. As the room was only described as extra space I would guess that it didn't comply with the regs when you bought it.

As an extra space it is OK; presuming that your surveyor checked the structure when you bought. As a bedroom it fails to meet the regulations.

Nowadays, fire doors are required for loft conversions, so that is one thing you would have to install.

peter40

if the room in the loft already exists and the works were carried out after the 11th november 1985 you could apply for a regularisation certificate from your local authority but this may require remedial work to be done including alterations to the staircase headroom, your local authority building control section will tell you exactly what is required after depositing an application, alternatively you could deposit plans for building regulation application for a loft conversion and just re-do the whole thing from scratch, sounds like this option would be the best if the stairs are already wrong because the regularisation fee is 10% more than the standard fee and either way it sounds like remedial works are necessary ( I'm a Building Control Officer)

SquirrelJ

Cheers for the advice

I have looked into the problem and I think I will have enough space to re do the staircase but for it to be less than 42 degrees and to open into 2 meters of space I will have to place a landing step halfway up and then dog leg the stairs out into the room space. But this isn’t a major problem as the room is massive.

The problem I have is that a floor beam is in the way. Can this be worked around or is this a sign that I can’t put my stairs in like that??? I was thinking that a proper builder would be able to remove a section and then support it another way but am not too sure. Suppose I will just after to ask and prepare the wallet.