We're in the process of buying a house which seemed ideal - the owners have done a loft conversion and added an extra bedroom which appeared to have been done really nicely.
After holding back on providing documents to my solicitor for the last 3 weeks, it now appears that they had no planning permission or building regs sign off for the works that have been done. I think they're OK on the planning front, but obviously they should have got building regs to sign off the work.
Their solicitor is now asking if we'll accept the vendors buying us an indemnity insurance policy to cover us in the eventuality that the council comes along and challenges us over the work, but if we accept that there's no way to get retrospective sign-off (and so no way to guarantee that the work has been done safely and to the required standards).
Other option is insisting that the vendors apply for building regs before the sale goes through (and remedy any issues that are raised).
I'm fuming as the vendors have spent the last 3 weeks trying to hide the truth from us. It seems they'd been lying to their solicitor all this time too - makes me wonder what else might be wrong.
What would you do in this case? Sorry this is so long!
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.
Property/DIY
No building regs for extension or loft conversion - would you proceed with house purchase
59 replies
NorkyButNice · 07/08/2009 16:06
OP posts:
Don’t want to miss threads like this?
Weekly
Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!
Log in to update your newsletter preferences.
You've subscribed!
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.