Have Building Regulators screwed up?

Steel_2

I'm hoping someone here will have either experienced this problem or may know how to preceed from here. I'm sorry it's a bit long but I wanted to be as thorough as possible with the details.


In April my fiance and I bought a 1950s ex-council three bed semi in a nice sleepy village. When built, the houses had an outbuilding that was joined to the back of the house. Each outbuilding consisted of a walkway between the main house wall and two smaller store rooms leading away from it.

The current owners had converted this arrangement into a room, added a doorway into the adjacent downstairs bathroom and changed the flat roof to a pitched roof to blend in with the rest of the house. There is no heating in there and only a wall mounted gas fire. During the course of the sale, it transpired they didn't have a completion certificate, which was duly obtained by them with little fuss. The only thing the council building inspector insisted on was a fan in the downstairs shower room (weird seeing as he wasn't called in to inspect that but took it upon himself to nose around the main house and check apparently!). The fan was fitted, the certificate obtained and the sale went ahead.


Two days ago, our kitchen drain blocked and, to cut a long story short, we found an inspection pit that contained the drain that takes the water away from the kitchen underneath the carpet in this room. We've cleared the drain and are leaving the water to dry out on the surrounding concrete floor (which the previous owners laid at the time of modification) before putting the carpet back.


Next week we are having a council tax re-evaulation and that room will be classed as either a usable fourth bedroom or a dining room. Now unfortunately, stupid me put my foot in it while talking to the evaluation officer on the phone today. She had described our house as having a self-contained annexe, which i explained it didn't, as there was no separate front door or kitchen. She agreed that without those it wasn't self-contained and she'd inspect it when she comes round next week. When she asked me what it was used for, I laughed and said !!!!!! but storage at the moment because of the problem with the drain in the floor.....the minute my words were out of my mouth I felt like putting the phone down. She was a bit surprised that a drain was allowed in a house but I said it had passed building regulations and I had the completion certificate.


The million dollar question is: If by some miracle two council departments actually get together and have a conversation about this can they a) revoke the certificate b) demand the work to remove the drain to the outside of the house be done and within a certain amount of time and c) what can we do about the council muppet who signed the cetificate in the first place.


If we had known there was a drain in there, we could have renegotiated the price of the house to have the work done. As it is, we have no money to do this kind of extensive reparation work that we are very scared will now be demanded of us.


I thought the idea of building regualtions was to prevent this kind of thing happening? All the houses in this street have plans lodged with the council as some of them still are council owned and contactors come round regularly to do work on them. Do the inspectors not look at these plans? If we had been using that room as a bedroom, I dread to think what could have happened if someone was sleeping in there and the drain backed up at night or worse, released methane vapours.

Happy_saver_4

Drains under property extensions are permitted. However, if possible it is better to route the drain run around the extension.

If the drain must run under the extension it must be in a straight line and be specially protected where it passes under the floor and the walls foundations. The manhole must be a 'double seal' type to prevent fumes etc entering the room.

With the Council having issued a completion certificate one can assume that plans were approved and passed for the extension; as currently constructed.

I doubt whether the council staff person dealing with council tax re-valuation has much knowledge (if any) about property construction. otherwise perhaps they would be a Building Inspector for the Council.

Basically don't worry - if the previous owners saved money by installing a standard manhole cover just replace it with a double seal one.

Steel_2

Thanks....you've put my mind at rest! As far as I'm aware the previously owners didn't have planning permission....they said they gave notice to the council but never got the council building inspector to come round until our solicitor demanded the completion certificate. That was a gap of about 3-4 years.

It's still a bit odd though....our surveyor at the time mentioned he couldn't make an adequate assessment of that room because there was boxes and rubbish from floor to ceiling and only a narrow walkway to get towards a small window. I wouldn't be surprised if the building inspector was unable to inspect the conversion properly at all yet he still signed it off???!!

We will certainly need to put a new drain cover in and seal it, as well as repairing the concrete floor around it. It looks like someone has taken a pickaxe to it.

Happy_saver_4

Sounds a bit of a mess, but nothing too serious.

Seems strange that the Building Inspector signed it off with no plans etc?? Many moons ago I used to be a BI and I'm afraid I would have made the owner supply me with plans and make an official retrospective application for approval.

But times have changed, for the better????

Don't worry I'm sure it can be sorted without major costs.

If it's unhabitable could it be called a workshop or something else which does not increase your re-valuation?