Lack of Building Regulations & Defective Title Indemnity Insurance

Thank you Doozergirl and David:T,

We appreciate your in-depth knowledge and opinions.:starmod:

Thanks to you guys the puzzle is getting a bit clearer, and the complex matter is narrowing down in smaller pieces to understand the legal responsibilities of each party involved in the legal duty to disclose information, namely the:

1 – The seller and his solicitor,

2 – The local authority

3 – The legal owner of the building

What the defective title indemnity insurance policies cover is the position a party would be in if the local authority take enforcement proceedings, which the they cannot do unless the structure is dangerous. If, however, a buyer was to approach the local authority with questions about work where there is no completion certificate, then the authority could come and inspect and to grant a certificate, they would have to check the work had been done correctly.

In many cases this is not possible because would mean dismantling everything as they check from foundations upwards. This is why an indemnity policy will not be granted if any approach has been made to the local authority.

I collated here some of my questions with your answers for more clarity:

A - If the local authority is aware that there are 9 converted homes (flats) but only 4 or 5 certificates isn't the local authority bound to pass this information to the conveyance solicitor? (or anyone who makes the request to obtain the information)
Answer: No. A high % of properties are lacking PP, BCA or both. The council only know what they know. You have to ask the question to get the answer. "I want to buy Flat 1". Search is carried out on Flat 1. Council provides the search results. If there is no BCA, PP result then that is for the buyer's solicitor to start delving deeper and asking questions of the vendor.

B - Is the council legally bound to pass the correct information (data) in its records to the buyers or any member of the public who has legal and financial interest in the information?
Answers: The council has to provide what it is asked for if it has it. If the building owner has turned the building into a random HMO and the council doesn't know, they don't know. Someone has to tell them. It sounds like someone's only just told them…..the council has to make its building control records available to the public. The council is not however obliged to do anything proactive to sort out apparent discrepancies with the current layout of the building.

C - Has the legal owner of the converted building a legal duty to inform the council or the buyers' solicitor if he/she knows the truth?
Answers: They (the legal owners) are legally bound to answer the questions asked by a buyer's solicitor with the truth. They don't have to reveal anything if it is not asked…..There is no legal duty to inform the council (…bit sceptical about this opinion though…) and (the legal owners) they've a duty not to give false answers to questions to the buyers' solicitors. Beyond that no. It's up to the buyers to satisfy themselves with whatever building control paperwork is provided.

Coming back to us, no we are not wasting time as any bit of information which you guys are giving can help and support people in similar situations and direct them to ask the right questions.

The complex situation that we are trying to unravel involves these factors:
- A highly defective building with serious structural defects, most of which are latent. The external structure changed little showing almost no changes but the internal layout is totally different. The defects are latent as it is not possible to inspect the internal areas and layout as each new conversion is a private home and what’s left of the internal original roof structure is no longer accessible in neither of the two converted houses.
- 4 or (perhaps 5 as council is not sure!) Completion certificates granted before all major alteration works were done without informing the local council that other conversion were built reaching 9 flats.
- None of these existing certificates is a valid one due to the major alterations creating 9 unlawfully converted flats crammed within and above an altered structure with no valid planning applications. We have been informed that in such situation, new planning applications were required in law before going ahead.

- Some of the additional conversion flats built within the original roofs adding considerable weight above the original structure of the two adjoined houses which weren’t built to support the new properties added above resulting in 9 converted flats with 8 out of 9 of these converted flats crammed in two four-storey buildings. These additional important alterations should suffice to seriously question the validity of the existing completion certificates granted before these major alteration works. What is someone built a couple of more floors with flats on Greenfel Tower?!?!

- 9 conversions flats crammed in a structure that was originally built for two adjoined houses and whose structure was already altered by the construction of additional basement-flat conversions. Two simple ground floor plus 1st floor house which became two adjoined four storey buildings. This means a considerable number of additional internal and external pipes for water and gas added for the 9 converted flats whereas before there were only 2 houses.

- The local authority does not hold any information on neither the altered roofs structure nor the existing main converted building after the major works. No design or construction information, no structural calculations, nothing at all. The building control has admitted that the conversions built on top of the others don’t have the required Building Control approval.

- The local authority doesn’t have a clue as to which conversion flat was granted a building certificate in 1993 and 1994 as the internal layout has been totally changed by the subsequent major alterations.

- In the past, many resident families wrote to the local authority informing of serious hazards as their homes are constantly flooded by defective roofs (whose structure is not possible to inspect other than with expensive invasive ‘surgery’) and by many of the defective, intricate and crammed number of internal water pipes (which cannot be accessed other than with expensive invasive ‘surgery’) due to the fact that they are serving many more new homes (9 some of which with two toilets) whereas before there were only two houses.

- The ongoing and unstoppable flooding has been affecting the equally crammed and intricate electric wiring circuitss in the entire building for years causing considerable concerns due to fire hazards. This in addition to mould infestations and a fire risk increased by the fact that there is no easy access to some of the flats built in the crammed structure and no fire escape routes or stairs.

With this scenario in mind, how can an unaware perspective buyer ask the right questions if the key defects are latent, if no one reveals the existence of indemnity insurance and the lack of building regulations and it is not possible to inspect the building properly?

How can any buyer make the right questions and investigations unless they are informed about the existence of indemnity insurance and the lack of building regulations?

Given that some the converted properties do not exist on the public authority records and plans and that the legal owners and the local council must be aware of the truth what details should be disclosed to the perspective buyers and who should disclose them?

Well, that's as clear as mud.

You have a leaky roof. It needs fixing. That is a key issue and it knocks on to other things. The longer you leave it, the more is affected. The saying is true. A stitch in time saves nine (flats).

There are houses up and down the country converted into flats, guest houses, HMOs. There's plenty of room in voids for pipes and cables. Nothing else goes in the void. I suspect that foundation issues are a red herring. Electrics can be checked for safety without uncovering everything.

Buyers have every opportunity to check the quality of a building, the layout of a flat according to the land registry documents, completion certifiactes for conversion - particularly those "loft apartments". There is the opportunity for surveys and for electrical testing. Lenders expect quite stringent checks themselves and having a mortgage provides some protection to buyers to ensure that they are carrying out due diligence. Cash purchasers can bypass all the checks that a mortgage company deems necessary.

If it is so bad, lenders would not be lending. If people are taking out indemnity policies then they *need* to satisfy themselves that the building is structurally sound before purchasing one. Indemnity policies are a paperwork exercise. Someone's potentially just invalidated one or many by getting the council involved in something that was ultimately their own responsibility to check that what they were buying was sound.

The flats that do have completion certificates probably are compliant. There are building regulations that specifically apply to flats and at the time that they were inspected, everything must have been present. That includes measures in communal areas to sign off one flat. That is the area that they may not comply to now if additional measures needed to be taken with the increase.

If additional flats are then created without the council's knowledge and with no planning or building control, there is nothing they can do. But at some point in conveyancing, there is going to be a discrepancy between the number of flats in a building and the number with planning permission. In order to have planning permission for a conversion there has to be paperwork creating a certain number. If there is a discrepancy, it has to be investigated.

Ultimately, this roof needs fixing. There are flats up and down the country that were converted before the introduction of regulations. They are *woefully* inadequate compared to building regulations in virtually every way and they sell and change hands every single day. And people live happily in them.

If there is a problem presenting itself then it needs to be tracked back and dealt with. First of all, the roof needs fixing. It leaks. It's not about finding blame for it - it's over 20 years since conversion and the roof is probably a great deal older than that even if it had some insulation inserted etc. with the conversion.

Your problem is a practical one of repairs and getting them organised and paid for by the leaseholders. It is not going to be solved by everyone sitting with their backsides on their hands wondering who to blame.

The background of our property.

The lenders can require quite stringent checks but in our case the conveyancer acted for both parties (buyers & lenders) and we found out much later that he revealed key material facts (such as the indemnity insurance and the defective title) only to the lenders and not to us.

In our case we learnt (much later) that it was the seller who took out an indemnity policy but no mention was reported to us about this key info from our solicitor during our conveyance.

We don’t know what information our conveyancer was provided for by the local council in regard to the lack of completion certificates.

As mentioned before in this post, we found out much later that the local authority does not hold any information on neither the altered roofs structure nor the existing main converted building after the major works. No design or construction information, no structural calculations, nothing at all. The building control has admitted that some of the conversions built don’t have the required Building Control approval but doesn’t have a clue as to which conversion flat was granted a building certificate after the subsequent major alterations.

At the time of our structural survey, our surveyor briefly suggested that our conveyance solicitor check that the conversion to flats obtained full building regulation approval but neither the conveyancer nor the council are willing to disclose to us what information (?) the council provided to him.

If all was legally okay, why no one wants to make a frank disclosure of what information the council provided to our conveyance solicitor?

Our surveyor and us could not possibly inspect the other converted flats (families homes) or ‘cut’ the roof to inspect the internal parts without this key information and the need to do so. Had we been informed we would have made further enquiries and research before to satisfy ourselves that the building was structurally sound before purchasing our leasehold flat.

We discovered (much later) that our conveyance solicitor was fully aware of the existence of a defective title indemnity insurance from the seller’s solicitor but he did not report it to us.

The defective title indemnity insurance we discovered recently states (with a subject access request -SAR- to our former conveyance solicitors) that the seller and the insured successors in title including mortgagees, lessees and charges to the property are all bound by the terms of the policy.

But how could we ever rely on this policy if no one disclosed it to us prior to the purchase? We discovered this policy by chance among the mountain of papers we received via the SAR.

In our case it was not possible to inspect the internal areas directly under the roofs as each new conversion is a private home and what’s left of the internal original roof structure is no longer accessible in neither of the two converted houses. The only property we inspected was our converted leasehold flat but at the time of our inspection there was no leaks and all was recently redecorated which would have covered the defects inside our home-to-be (hence latent).

The leaks started 3 weeks after we moved in and went on no-stop for 10 years.


As for most bank’s mortgage manager the main driving force and interest is to sell the product, namely the mortgage and other ancillary products such as insurance, etc. and they are not always interested in carrying out due diligence in structural matter for small properties as far as the mortgage repayments are paid back.

Yes, in our case there is a leaky roof. The legal owner of the building (freeholder) neither disclosed that the defective roofs were awaiting impending repairs since 6 years before we purchased our lease nor that there are no completion certificates covering all the converted flats and that no one knows anymore which flat was covered which was built without certificate and with no planning application.

All the major alterations with more flats built were made after the current legal owner acquired the building soon after the initial certificates were issued.

The foundation issues in our case were and still are a red herring as the local council doesn’t have any information after the unlawful conversion which altered the building.

Our home has been constantly flooded with water for ten years. We have been unable to rent or sell due to the severity and frequency of the water ingress. (waterfalls).

It is unclear to us who among the legal owner, our conveyance solicitor, the council or our surveyor has failed to pass the correct information.

Who should disclose us the truth so that we can recover at least part of our damages and how to force the disclosure?

Any opinion and support is highly welcomed.

If this all came to light ten years ago, you're probably out of time to do anything legal about it.