Help -Buying a house chain break

[journey2013]

The house we are purchasing is almost at completion HOWEVER there is a side extension which was done by a previous owner which has no building regs and/or planning permission documentation.

Our homebuyers surveyor did not pick up any issues however did request the above documentation. As they dont have this he requested a structural survey be carried out. The vendors are now asking for exchange asap and will not allow a structual survey of the extenstion.

We need to decide tonight whether to go ahead, can anyone advise on

1. the impact on house insurance ? I rang a major provider and they said they wouldnt cover but then another said they would as long as 'standard' construction.

2. Any impact on resale ?

Dont know what to do, has anyone bought a house in these circumstances ?

Thanks in advance

Run away

Don't buy it without planning documentation. I think the local council could force you to knock it down without this.

forgot to say there is a letter from the council to say 'no' action would be taken..however this obviously doesn't cover us for quality/foundations etc

Run away and don't look back.

Could you or they pay for an indemnity policy to cover it? That's the only solution I know of to deal with this kind of thing - have your solicitors not given you any advice?

Run... tell them why... but do run, very, very quickly.

You won't ever get insurance on it... not ordinary, no extra charge insurance. It may be of standard construction but must also be 'to code'. You may never be able to resell it without paying to have the paperwork completed.

And you could, as the new owners, be required to take it down, does it need planning permission, is it within what would be granted, etc?

Just tell them, they will know it is a problem and are just hoping you want the house badly enough to take a chance!

Or you could ask your surveyor how much he estimates it will cost to make it all good and deduct it from your offer! See what they say then!

Run. If there aren't any issues why wouldn't they let you have the structural survey done?

Thank you for such speedy replies really appreciate it! SO stressed out ! There is a 'no action' letter from the council however i think we would still have issue with buildings insurance ?? But i think means we don't need indemnity insurance as the insurance only covers fines from council not anything else.

Has anyone purchased a house and had this issue ? Any property lawyers out there? Anyone with insurance advice ?

Thank you so much ...

The fact that they will not allow a structural survey rings alarm bells for me. I would insist on it and walk away if they refuse.

Or I would reduce my offer to the value of the house without the side extension.

I used to be a conveyancing lawyer. In my view 'missing paperwork' can normally be sorted in most cases. You have a letter from the council saying no enforcement action will be taken, which should cover you. However I would be very wary of the sellers not wanting the extension to be surveyed.

If you don't have the relevant building regulations paperwork and they won't let you survey it, you have absolutely no way of knowing whether it's been constructed safely!

As you've mentioned, insurance could be a massive problem and you also need to think about reselling in the future.

This is an issue that will come up whenever your sellers sell, so they would be silly to pull out now - I would suggest calling their bluff and refusing to proceed without a surveyor looking at the extension.

Hth!!!

Not a solicitor but just bought a house with a conservatory extension... and we were not allowed to do anything until the paperwork for it was in our solicitor's hands. She was quite particular about it

What does your solicitor advise you to do about this? I would be very surprised if your solicitor would agree to an exchange without satisfactory paperwork being in place, or a full structural survey being done. They should let you know what the options are and write/email the seller's solicitors setting out what needs to be done. Have you searched the council's planning website to find out if planning permission was ever sought and what certiticates/documentation were issued at the time. Absolutely do not exchange while this is outstanding. You need to be sure that the extension has been built to an acceptable standard, especially if load-bearing walls have been removed.

Our house has two extensions. One was completed before need for building regs / planning permission. But we have an insurance waiver to cover it which they paid for having done a full structural survey on it (is very simple construction) which didn't find any issues.
It doesn't cost us any extra in premiums or whatever.
Declining doing a survey to resolve this would make me worry there was something not right, so I'd walk away from it.
They'll have problems every time they get to this point so don't understand why they wouldn't bend over backwards to resolve this.

Tell them that without the structural survey you'll need a reduction in the price. Just pulled out of a house purchase for similar reasons..... only to find from the nieghbour grapevine that it was, indeed, dodgy. You need to share the risk if it's not legit. That's a reasonable thing to do.

I don't think the lack of certification is as much of a problem as the buyers' refusal to let you carry out a structural survey - that would make me very suspicious. I hope it's not a house that you love...

The fact that the vendor doesn't want the survey is a huge red flag IMO.

Pull out.

The vendors are now asking for exchange asap and will not allow a structual survey of the extenstion

This is an enormous red flag with all bells and whistles going as well. I'd walk away unless they were willing to drop the price by an amount equal to having the extension torn down and re-built.

If the building work was legit' and safe, then why on earth wouldn't they allow a structural survey? If it isn't constructed safely it could, potentially, be either expensive to fix or downright dangerous!!

Would you buy a potentially faulty and dangerous car? Cars are just a fraction of the price of a house.

I would imagine that if you are getting a mortgage to purchase the property it would be a condition of the mortgage offer that all appropriate planning conditions for the property be in place. I would be very surprised if your solicitor would be able to proceed without this being sorted regardless of what you and the seller want to do as they owe a duty of care to the mortgagee.

When we bought our house, which has a two story extension, the planning permission was dated far more recently than the age of the actual extension. Our solicitor assumed that planning permission was given retrospectively to the previous owner. Didn't cause any issues for us.
If you do get a satisfactory survey - I hope you can - maybe you can also get retrospective planning permission. Just a thought.
But you absolutely must get that survey - their behaviour is very suspect.

Call their bluff

We naively bought a house with an extension that didn't have planning permission/building regs approval which we are now selling. Our solicitors (IMO) were very remiss in not following this up and we've had to pay the price.

Fortunately it didn't need planning, but the council were aware of it so it showed on the searches (the previous owners had applied and been granted planning permission for a larger extension) so an indemnity policy was worthless.

We've had to get a Regularisation Certificate which fortunately the council were prepared to give without too detailed an inspection (they can ask you to expose brickwork etc). We've since had to allow our buyer to get a structural engineers report because it wasn't clear whether there was an RSJ in and her surveyor flagged this. He was there literally for 5 minutes and it's all sorted now. But it's cost us around £600 and our buyer the cost of the structural survey and quite a bit of delay.

Don't buy without this being sorted because it will come back to haunt you when you want to sell.

Also, thinking about it, if you are buying with a mortgage your solicitor simply won't be able to exchange or complete unless the paperwork is all in order. They will be acting for the lender too, and so have a legal duty to them too. So however much you might say to your solicitor you don't mind about the missing paperwork, they simply won't be able to proceed without it.

Maybe you could use this as a bargaining tool with the sellers - your solicitors are refusing to exchange, but if they just let you have it surveyed and get paperwork sorted, you'd be able to proceed...

I know dropping out at this stage is difficult, but the refusal to allow a survey SCREAMS that there is something to hide.

money pit alert!

I walked away from a sale after the survey revealed lots of scary things including the knocking out of a chimney breast without installing adequate supports afterwards. The vendor also installed a downstairs none standard bathroom extension without permission, it was a conservation area so any changes needed council authorization. She also changed the shape of the portrait windows to landscape so not in keeping with rest of the street, we would have had to apply for retrospective planning permission without any guarantees of acceptance. The structural engineer was surprised the house was still standing as she'd knocked out so many internal walls without putting in any supports.

We couldn't afford all the remedial work required so walked away losing about £1500 but that was the best decision for us. It took a further two years before the house was sold, the vendor thought we were overreacting. Walk away while you've got the chance.