House purchase - no completion certificates for extension/renovation

[Bellendejour]

Hello all!

I’m posting for a friend who is having some major last minute house purchase stress. In a nutshell:

With one week to go until we are supposed to move in we’ve just found out that the sellers never applied for completion certificates for the house extension which kind of means the planning permission isn’t really valid. They’ve offered to get us some kind of indemnity insurance but it doesn’t feel enough as what would happen if we decided to sell?! Going to try and see if they’ll lower the price.

The solicitor has been quite shit. And they’ve changed the whole house around including an extension up and to the side and changed the kitchen to the bathroom (or something like that). They’ve applied for building warrants for all of the work but only have 1 completion certificate when there should be 4…

Does anyone have any advice on what they should do, what they need to get the (shit) solicitor to do, what the indemnity needs to cover, how much money off to ask for, any other screaming issues with all of the above?

Thanks so much for any help, obviously all very stressful at this stage!

You seem quite relaxed about this, but won't it cause difficulty with the lender?

I seem relaxed about it because it happens all the time, I'd say at least 80% of all house transactions I work on don't have all the correct paperwork for various things and 9 times out of 10 a lender will accept indemnity insurance. It happens that often that if they didn't they'd never get to lend on anything!

And what if it transpires the work was unsafe?

Well I would suggest, regardless of this situation, that anyone buying a property has a proper survey done.

If the works were 6 months old I'd say the best thing to do would be to try and obtain the certificates (most indemnity providers don't cover works under a year in age anyway). But something like 10 years old and you've had a proper survey done? Yes I'd accept the indemnity personally and not think any more of it.

Agree with @FeckingPuddleDuck. This is incredibly common.

When we bought our own house, it had a garage conversion with no regs. It was done about 8 years before we bought it. We had a survey done and the sellers took out an indemnity policy. That was that.

Nope I'd run away. You only find out a week before and they didn't even tell you themselves. Possibly hiding something, if you're willing to take that risk go ahead, but who knows who actually did the building work and if it was done right. I'd not want to risk it collapsing on me or my family.

OMG thank you so much for all the responses! I’ll share with my friend and come back on any questions! (She’s not on MN) xxxxx

I don’t see the logic in trying to get money off. If you have to reverse the works a bit of money off now will be cold comfort.

@SmokeyDevil

Nope I'd run away. You only find out a week before and they didn't even tell you themselves. Possibly hiding something, if you're willing to take that risk go ahead, but who knows who actually did the building work and if it was done right. I'd not want to risk it collapsing on me or my family.

You would get a survey done to satisfy yourself that the house wasn't going to collapse on you or your family. Not rely on 10 year old building regs certificates (or however old it may be). A lot of the time these works were done years ago and as there is no time limit on requiring building reg certificates like there is on planning permission in order to sell, a lot of th time it's simply covered with indemnity.

If you have any concerns (and even if you don't) you should be getting a proper survey done before you move in not relying on old paperwork.

If you got a full structural survey wouldn't that show if extension was substandard (or up to standard?)?& than get them to get indemnity?
Asking out of interest?

You would get a survey done to satisfy yourself that the house wasn't going to collapse on you or your family. Not rely on 10 year old building regs certificates (or however old it may be). A lot of the time these works were done years ago and as there is no time limit on requiring building reg certificates like there is on planning permission in order to sell, a lot of th time it's simply covered with indemnity.

If you have any concerns (and even if you don't) you should be getting a proper survey done before you move in not relying on old paperwork.

Yeah hopefully they have had a survey done, but I still find it dodgy that they haven't bothered doing the proper paperwork, especially all of it, they got 1 but not the other 3, why? If they can't be bothered doing that, what else did they not bother doing? It's a lot of money to gamble and it's not one I would take a gamble on. Maybe the house will be fine, but hiding those kind of details just makes them look untrustworthy. I'd quite happily walk away and let someone else take the risk, wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

@SmokeyDevil

You would get a survey done to satisfy yourself that the house wasn't going to collapse on you or your family. Not rely on 10 year old building regs certificates (or however old it may be). A lot of the time these works were done years ago and as there is no time limit on requiring building reg certificates like there is on planning permission in order to sell, a lot of th time it's simply covered with indemnity.

If you have any concerns (and even if you don't) you should be getting a proper survey done before you move in not relying on old paperwork.

Yeah hopefully they have had a survey done, but I still find it dodgy that they haven't bothered doing the proper paperwork, especially all of it, they got 1 but not the other 3, why? If they can't be bothered doing that, what else did they not bother doing? It's a lot of money to gamble and it's not one I would take a gamble on. Maybe the house will be fine, but hiding those kind of details just makes them look untrustworthy. I'd quite happily walk away and let someone else take the risk, wouldn't bother me in the slightest.

Of course you are quite right to not take a 'gamble' on anything you don't wish to. I am only speaking from experience that these things are extremely common place in conveyancing.

It can be for a number of reasons. A common one I come across is that the sellers didn't actually do the work, it was bought by them after the works and they too didn't get any paperwork. I've had people who didn't know they needed to get BRegs for certain things (commonly new windows and boilers, people never seem to have them for those or seem aware that you should), I've had things like the company who did it have disappeared but didn't register it at the time, paperwork lost and so on... I wouldn't jump straight to trying to hide something especially if I knew the buyer had had a proper survey done too.

It can be difficult trying to enquire about it too. They don't always show on the local searches but that doesn't mean they haven't been done. But you go and enquire with the council to check and then you can't get an indemnity policy (or not as easily anyway).

It can turn into a lot of hassle which, in my experience is not usually worth it.

It's entirely up to the person buying whether they wish to go ahead but as I say it is incredibly common. It wouldn't surprise me if any other house the OPs friend put an offer in on didn't have some sort of paperwork for something or another. It's very rare that a seller has absolutely everything to hand.

How long ago was the work done?

We are in Scotland too

We were in this position as sellers 2 months ago, except we hadn’t applied for completion certificate We had done the work in 2006.

It was really simple to rectify-we had deviated from the approved plans (building warrant, not planning permission) in that there was an aspect of the job we hadn’t done. All we had to do was submit amended plans, which I did with the help of a piece of paper and a pritt stick , and an electrical safety certificate, and it was all approved and we had the certificate within 48 hours.

It cost us £300 in total, £100 for the certificate and £200 for the electrical inspection

@FeckingPuddleDuck

Thats fair enough and it probably would be OK, it's just not something I could do, it would drive me mad. But I do have quite a lengthy list of things I will refuse to deal with when it comes to houses, and that would be a big issue that would send me running.

If it was done years ago and you’ve had a proper survey done then you’ll be fine to proceed. If it was done last year and you haven’t had a proper survey insist they get the certificates.

Thanks so much everyone!

The work was done 10 years ago. Friend says: “It all works on a good report in Scotland which said all was fine assuming permissions had been granted…”

They haven’t concluded missives yet.

@Bellendejour

Thanks so much everyone!

The work was done 10 years ago. Friend says: “It all works on a good report in Scotland which said all was fine assuming permissions had been granted…”

They haven’t concluded missives yet.

That makes sense - the home report is commissioned by the seller and made available to all interested buyers, buyers don't pay for a survey up here.

My view would be that if the surveyor has said the work is fine, which is what it sounds like, then I'd go ahead and buy with indemnity insurance in place.

@VeryLittleOwl just make sure your friend checks with her lender, it was the lender who wanted the certification for our old house, as it was perfect on the Home buyers report