Aibu to be at a bit of a loss of my next steps and ask the wise people of mumsnet advice buying a house, without building regulations and a vague survey. Any ideas!

[Freddiefox]

I’m buying a house and the solicitors letter has come back saying that the wall that was knocked should have a building regulation certificate if it is a load bearing wall. The owners state that it’s not a load bearing wall, so doesn’t need one.

I paid £750 for a survey for the report to come back starting that some of the partitions on the ground level are probably load bearing but it doesn’t say which ones (couldn’t really be any more vague if they tried tbh)

I don’t want to be lumbered with a house I can’t sell at a later date but it’s perfect for us.
Any ideas of suggestions of what to do now? Or anyone been in a similar position?

Find a structural engineer who can confirm whether or not the wall is load bearing. Also, get back to the surveyers and tell them you need to know which walls are load-bearing and which are not.

It's not just a question of a house you might not be able to sell. At worst, it's a house that might collapse on top of you and your family. Don't buy it until you are certain.

What Bridget said. Also you can insist the sellers arrange an indemnity for lack of building regs that will cover you for the costs of putting right should you need to - however you will of course still be taking a risk over having to deal with the hassle. Lots of properties sell with this in place and there is no issue but a structural engineer will give you a proper idea of the risk involved (eg could be, 'strictly it should have building regs but its likely to be fine' or 'don't touch it with a bargepole'!).

Call the surveyor to ask for more info. There should be a phone number on your survey. You'll prob need a structural engineer's report to be sure. If its not a load bearing wall then your seller can provide suitable legal indemnity insurance. Don't contact the local authority building regs dept though as it would make the indemnity policy option impossible.

If you have a structural engineer's report confirming the property is structurally safe plus indemnity policy you won't have problems on sale.

Your solicitor really should be advising you on this. If you are using a mortgage to buy the property then this will need to be resolved anyway (so that your solicitor, who is also likely to be acting for your lender aswell, can certify that everything is in order)

Thanks all, it’s all so complicated.

Can you apply for building regulations retrospectively?

@Luzina

Don't contact the local authority building regs dept though as it would make the indemnity policy option impossible.... I don’t understand, why would that cause a problem?

In regard to the structural engineer's report. I had a full structural survey done. Top
Level cost a lot of money. Are they not the same things?

You are too naive to buy a house. Go back to your solicitor and ask him to sort this out. Don’t depend on a bunch of housewives to answer technical structural questions on vague description from yourself.

Although the "bunch of housewives" is a bit offensive, that poster has a point.

We can't advise you. That's what you're paying the solicitor to do. So tell them to get their finger out.

Removing a load bearing wall without buildings consent isn't a minor issue. It's a major one.

Surveys are so shit, they make me mad. Vague, cursory, inconclusive. I watched a surveyor go into the property we were buying - we were paying £500 ten years ago - in and out in 5 minutes.

You are too naive to buy a house. Go back to your solicitor and ask him to sort this out.

Do you know what, you don’t need to be so cutting it’s not needed.

Of course I will ring the solicitor, however i received the report yesterday and I would like to know if anyone else wasn’t in a similar situation and what their options were so when I talk to him I can understand them situation a little better before I speak to him.

Of course I’m naive most people who buy a house for the first time are, this is why I’m asking people who might have been in this situation themselves.

I may be out of date in my knowledge but afaik indemnity insurance is only issued if no enquiries have been made of the local authority about building regs

If you phone your surveyor directly he or she may be able to confirm which walls are load bearing. However they might well advise you to get a secondary report.

Good luck.

We paid for a full structural survey on our 400 yr old house. It was pathetic. He missed the rotting window frames (freshly painted closed). Also missed damp under the cloakroom. Spent more time commenting on a fucking coal bunker in the garden.

They make it watertight within their Ts and Cs so you’re stuffed if you try to follow up with what they’ve missed.

I had a similar issue from the other side when selling a house. This came up in the survey to do with a chimney breast that had been knocked down. Iirc they weren't worried from a structural point of view as it was properly jointed but from a building regs point of view and wanted me to pay for an indemnity insurance.

I pointed out that this hadn't come up when I'd bought the house 3 years previously so why was it an issue now. And also pointed out that the house was over 100 years old maybe the chimney breast had been knocked down before building regs were a thing.

Never heard anything else about it.

Personally I wouldn't be worried about the building regs. But yes, you need to be sure there's no structural issues.

orangeballoon is a dick

And yes, if you paid for the top level of survey I'd be annoyed if they couldn't answer this.

@Freddiefox We're in a very similar situation at the moment, also with a chimney breast. Our solicitor sent an email in Friday afternoon saying "the necessary building regs are not in place" which sent us into panic. Then she backtracked somewhat, saying that the work may not have needed building regs but that we need to contact our surveyor to confirm. Unfortunately, our surveyor is notoriously impossible to get hold of and the seller is threatening to pull out because we have taken all of 7 weeks and aren't ready to exchange yet because of this...

Please ignore the snarky comments - of course it's useful to know about others' experiences. I'll let you know what happens with ours.

I pulled out of buying a house when we discovered that a two storey extension did not have building regs. The application was started, but never completed. Asked sellers to continue retrospectively with the application and they refused. Their solicitor was pushing indemnity insurance on us. We refused - indemnity insurance only protects you from costs and complications that might arise from a failure to follow building regulations, should it come to light. So for example, should a wall start to sink, it's my understanding that indemnity insurance would not cover the works needed to correct this. It would however, cover the work needed if a Building Control Officer was notified of a lack of building regs and the structure required removing - but not the rebuilding works. The insurance is also invalidated if you as the policy holder inform the Council of the breach.

Their solicitor got very patronising when we refused to accept indemnity insurance, stating that 'everyone did it'. Well, thats up to everyone, but no house is worth that financial risk/worry.

Find another house if they won't apply for building regulations retrospectively. We had to do it for a house we sold (a small downstairs toilet in a house we wanted to buy did not have building regs - we negotiated that we would hold £5000 of the selling price post completion for one year whilst we applied for BR and hand it back entirely or with required costs removed to cover any works required). The whole thing took less than a week and we didn't have to do any additional work to get the signed off certificate.

Find another house to buy?

Also, the lack of building regs might be a very convenient get put clause for your building insurance provider, should you ever put in a claim requiring cover for building works that have failed

"the lack of building regs might be a very convenient get put clause for your building insurance provider, should you ever put in a claim requiring cover for building works that have failed"

Sorry - was attempting to copy+paste this in order to send to DHs WhatsApp, as I thought it was an important point!

Thanks ‘you bunch of housewives’ that was really helpful. Surveyor feels that it’s is a supporting wall otherwise why go to the bother of putting a beam in, but is going back to have a look a the joist and pull the carpet up for me to confirm.

He seems to feel that the work had been carried out to a high standard and it wouldn’t put him off at all, structurally it’s all been done to a good standard.

He said immdenity insurance is the way to go, and it would cover any problems with the work as well as build regs.
However the solicitor will need to make sure it’s the right type.

So my next question is:
There are few bits and bobs on the survery most of which are more decoration and I feel I can fix other than some doors don’t open which is a big problem.
So would like to negotiate that these are fixed before I move in.

So the question is who negotiates this? Me or the solicitor?

@PapayaCoconut

The surveyor said that the work would be covered with the right insurance, and the solicitor should ensure this.

Personally I'd do it via solicitor. The estate agents can be useful too but whoever negotiates your solicitor will need to confirm it with the seller's solicitor

You can work out for yourself which walls are load-bearing if you can get a look at the floorboards of the floor above. Whichever way the floorboards are lying will be perpendicular to the rafters. Whichever way the rafters are lying will be perpendicular to the load bearing walls. Any wall that is parallel to the rafters is not load-bearing as rafters have to rest their ends on a load bearing wall. In houses more complex than a straight box, it is possible to have rafters going one way in one part of the house and the other elsewhere.

Can you find out when the changes were made? Building regulations were only introduced in 1984 so if it was before then you don't need to worry, they aren't retrospective.

If the changes were made after the regulations were introduced then you can be forced to regularise the building - that could mean just getting a stronger beam put in, if the beam used was inadequate. The indemnity policy referred to above is basically an insurance policy against being found out - they are useless if you ever intend to do any work on the house yourself as the older work would get found out when the newer work was being assessed - if you do anything to make it more likely that you might be found out the policy becomes invalid.