Sellers forcing us to buy without building regs

[Velvetpine]

DP and I (we have one DC) have been trying to buy a house for a few months. The sellers did an attic conversation with an office/bedroom and a bathroom in the loft. They didn’t get any drawings done at the time of converting, no building regs, and didn’t get the permitted development part signed off either - literally nothing. They’re trying to push us to accept indemnity insurance but it’s not clear whether our mortgage lender would accept this, and even so there could be potential safety and fire hazards if it wasn’t done properly. It was done 6 years ago. Our surveyor and solicitor suggest indemnity insurance wouldn’t be good enough.

The work from what we can see was done well so maybe it’s fine, but we don’t want to take the risk and we might also have problems selling ourselves down the line without retrospective permission being sought. I love the house so feeling gutted.

Has anyone else been in this position and what did you do?

My point was more that tearing down a conservatory or even having it collapse is one thing, but would you take the risk with your roof. The fact the surveyor says to avoid worries me. I bought a house requiring indemnity for a porchway and was advised that would be fine. No one said to avoid it.
Is the house terraced, would neighbours also be affected if something happened? It far too risky.

Also.... if there is no buildings regs etc in place it can't be sold as a room but as a floored loft/attic... and the price should reflect this
We had this in my house.... so to get buildings regs (even with permitted development etc) as it would turn the house into 3 stories, we would need to have fire doors on all the doors off the main hallway/stairwell....
Indemnity should cover the legal side but you should look at cost of the fire doors

If you really really love the house I'd have a chat with the bank and the potential insurance company - both of whom will say that they won't cover it. Get them to put that in writing and then go back to the estate agents rather than the buyers with copies and explain that you are gutted that you can't proceed as a result of the missing regs and the vendors stubbornness in not getting this resolved and point out that they are basically making themselves unsaleable to anyone except a cash buyer who isn't fussed about insurance. Say you are happy to wait for the to resolve the impasse and leave the EA to explain that to the vendor and see if that prompts a change of heart.

Walk away and keep looking. They are trying to pass off their negligence onto you. Untrustworthy people who should have known better, what else are they concealing?

You won't love the house when it's cost you £££ in non-compliance issues.

A loft conversion must only meet the regs from when it was done - 6 years ago, so no matter what it will not meet the regs as of 2024. I would far prefer to have an up to date structural report from now, than a piece of paper from 6 years ago.

A mortage company will accept an indemnity, that is what they are usually used for.

If you cannot accept or want to involve a structural engineer then look for another house.

Not sure if you already know this, or another poster has explained. An indemnity policy is a sit and wait, i.e you cannot have one and go for retrospective permission, that would indemnify your policy. Councils seldom have time to go round checking up on relatively small bits of work. The indemnity policy passes from you to any potential buyer to cover them for an incident that would involve the council asking you to remove the extension. In reality this is unlikely to happen. However, lofts without building regs generally means the height of ceiling isn’t correct, this may mean you decide the conversion doesn’t stack up as an extra bedroom - which is presumably how you viewed and made an offer on the property. Could you reduce your offer in line with the number of legitimate bedrooms the property has? I have never heard of a bank refusing to lend because of an indemnity, but maybe this loft is particularly odd.

Quoting my own post I know as a part of it at the beginning was missing! Instruct a structural engineer to look at the conversion, ask the vendors if they will pay, they may do. Get an up to date report to see if it is safe and habitable. If it is then there should be no problem with an idemnity.

This is why people don't get regs sign off none of that is to do with it being structurally sound rather forcing your interpretation of risk on someone else.

OP if you love the house do you have the budget to put it right? I would be tempted to get a surveyor in to make sure it structurally sound and take the indemnity any work you can then decide if you want to do to get the regs signed off for moving on in years to come.

We had this as sellers, we had a loft conversion completed and the company we used although did have building regs inspect, did not get final sign off.

There was a lot going on in our lives at the time so it slipped our mind to chase the final sign off, but years down the line when we came to sell our buyers were saying the same as us.

We ended up having to get building regs from the local authority to come and sign off retrospectively, it was a faff it I understand why the buyers needed this and we were going to encounter this with any buyers. Ours were cash buyers with no mortgage but even so... they were right to be concerned.

Thanks so much everyone this is so helpful. Aware we can’t ask the council without invaliding any indemnity insurance but maybe we could ask for their general advice, can’t find the right details though, the house is in Corby

Not sure what general advice you are asking. They cannot comment on soundness or otherwise without inspection.

The only thing you could ask in terms of general advice would be the current timescales for BC, so if the seller does apply now how long would it take. Doesn’t help of course if they need to remediate the work.

Friends of ours bought a house with a loft like this. (But negotiated a drop in price.) 10 years later the roof and ceiling collapsed as it hadn't been supported properly when they removed purlins. Cost them £40k to repair.

Please either (a) walk away or (b) reduce the price considerably to take account of doing all the work again yourselves.

Indemnity in this case won’t be worth the paper it’s written on. An indemnity policy will not protect you from having to pay ££££ to correct work that you find out has been done dangerously etc.

If it was done 30+ years ago it would be a different story and an indemnity would be ok because the work would be time tested but 6 years ago? Absolutely do not risk it.

We had a very similar scenario and walked away. The work in our case was quite a bit older but there had been other alterations done more recently without any BRs in place either which concerned us about the seller’s general approach to standards.

In our purchase we assumed the loft rooms were original attic bedrooms. Our survey flagged up that they weren’t, our solicitor found no paperwork at all existed and pointed out this was a major issue and notified our mortgage company. We were being put under a lot of pressure to move quickly and the seller absolutely refused to recognise there was any problem at all and engage with any further surveyors (backed up by the estate agent, who was utterly unhelpful throughout) but we did manage to send round a builder we knew, who spotted that the floors and the dormer windows were both unsafe. We tried substantially lowering our offer to represent the fact that the house had two fewer bedrooms legally and would require a lot of work to make safe, but the seller turned it down immediately, so we pulled out. To my knowledge they’ve never remarketed the house.

Nobody can ‘force ‘ you to buy a house , they either get the necessary permission and certificates or you walk away - simple . I really can’t see the issue and if it was me I’d be looking at different houses already .

If you want advice speak to a structural engineer not the council. There is always a way to sort an issue, if the property is the one for you then try and find a way where everyone is happy.

As I have said before, you can have a piece of paper in your hand which says the loft conversion was correct 6 years ago (regs sign off). That does not mean it is now, get a professional to check it as to how it is now in order to satisfy the legal and safety aspects of it. If their opinion is that it is then you can proceed with the purchase with an idemnity. If not, the next stage is to see what has to be done and how much it will cost - you can then approach the vendors to see if they will reduce the price and/or get the work completed.

If the engineer says it is not safe then you probably have your answer.

Use your time and effort dealing with professionals, not asking Corby council for advice - it will be a waste of your time and will not get you any further forward.

Just to give you an example of regs 6 years ago versus now - I will guarantee to you 6 year old electrics on the conversion will not meet the standard part P regulations - yet a piece of paper saying they do would seem to satisfy you, rather than getting someone to check the electrics are actually safe. I know which I would prefer.

@pigletinthewoods That' s what I said- perhaps you didn't read the post! Householders do not need PP (planning permission) for PD (permitted development). They just need building regs...

Walk away. Quickly.

Unless they will regularise themselves (and it's clear they either can't or won't), I would ask for a discount on the basis it isn't a habitable space, due to lack of building control sign-off (if it was advertised as such). I would also have them pay for an indemnity. It's been like that for 6 years so wouldn't flinch re its safety, personally.

You could also ask for a visit from a private building control company, for their initial opinion, if you were concerned re safety or the chance of it not being compliant, if you wanted to regularise it yourself later.

how someone in their right of being financially capable of buying a house can be forced to buy if they do not want to buy. LOL