Would you buy a house with no building regs approval for the downstairs loo?

[Worried1305]

We're quite far down the road of buying a house - we were hoping to move within a couple of months. However, the vendors have just sent us some paperwork which reveals that their downstairs loo was put in (in 2020) without building regs approval.

For boring reasons which I won't go into, having a downstairs loo is very important to DH and I - and one of the major reasons why we decided to buy this house.

We're aware we could get the vendors to take out indemnity insurance which would cover the costs of having to tear the toilet out, if the council got wind of it and decided to make us do that. But that would leave us with a property which doesn't have a downstairs loo. It would also (presumably) decrease the value of the house.

We don't LOVE the house, but we're trying to move to a nice area where the market is slow. Very few suitable houses have come up in the last 5 months. This one ticks all the boxes, and it might not be easy to find another one which does.

DH is VERY risk-averse and is concerned that if the owners didn't get the right approvals at the time, that's because they knew they wouldn't get it approved at all. In a worst case scenario, according to him, if it's not been plumbed in correctly then we could end up with lots of poo all over our downstairs.

But are we cutting our nose off to spite our face if we pull out now? Perhaps it's quite common for people not to bother getting building regs approval? Perhaps the council aren't bothered about this sort of thing really, and wouldn't ever be likely to demand the WC be removed?

YABU - Buy the house, it will all be fine as long as you get indemnity insurance
YANBU - I wouldn't touch this house with a barge pole

Any validity in saying the sellers have to get approval prior to exchange?

No need for indemnity. The vendors can get retrospective building regs. It’s called a regularisation certificate. They need to contact the local council. A form, a fee and a visit from an inspector is all that’s required. If everything is in order a certificate will be issued.

Thanks for the responses. @gottakeeponmoving Would the vendors be likely to agree to this, though? We're concerned that if we ask them to do this, they'll just pull out of the sale altogether, because if the certificate was refused then they would be responsible for tearing out the WC themselves.

I would get a plumber to check it.
Toilets are not high spec technical plumbing. As long as soil pipe has a proper fall and is properly vented it'll be fine.

A house I bought had no planning consent for alterations the owner had done.
They had to apply for retrospective permission before the sale could go through.

What AfricanGreen said
A half decent plumber will be able to see if the venting was done correctly and if pipework is likely to fail and a camera can add extra protection against poor workmanship.
Assuming that the new connections were done to the existing household piping and not an illegal connection to the public works the LA dont have a reason to investigate.
So its down to how long you plan on living in the house and pricing the resale value of the house as one without a downstairs loo.

I'll never be able to sell my house then. I had no idea this was even a thing. Surely the vendors won't have been living with poo floating round the downstairs living area for the last 25 years?

The council will not want you to pull out a downstairs WC as this makes the property less accessible. They may want modifications eg to ventilation.

I had this but with an upstairs loo. It turns out the ventilation and where the soil pipe goes isn't right. I asked for an indemnity but it's pretty pointless given the work was a few years ago and this doesn't make the structure sound. So I also asked for the estimated cost from the survey to put the issues right and apply for retrospective planning consent. It amounted to about £1300 and then buying the indemnity. This was agreed as it was clear on my survey which was a really good building survey.

There is the risk they would refuse. I guess it just depends on how long they’ve been on the market and how keen they are to move.

I don’t know how big this downstairs wc is but I’m guessing there are no major structural changes. The only possible issue would be ventilation and the drains but an inspection camera would spot if there is anything major going wrong. Perhaps pay for a drains inspection? If that reassured you then an indemnity policy would be fine I think.

You've now put the fear in me. I'm in the process of buying a house that's had a downstairs toilet added and I didn't know building regs were required either.

Building regs would sign off the work. You don't need planning for a downstairs loo, so worst case you'd have to get someone to do the work properly, you wouldn't be without a loo.

I did. It was fine. Sold it without issue.

As PP said, I think for accessibility reasons they won’t ask you to remove it (you also wouldn’t be allowed to remove a downstairs loo if you didn’t want one). They may make you alter it to meet the regulations, but I think the indemnity insurance can cover that.

I’ll be honest, this wouldn’t bother me at all.

When was the loo added, I think there’s a limit on local authority enforcement anyway?

This^

In the highly unlikely event that the council find out or care about your loo they won’t ask you to rip it out, just be inspected/signed off. Indemnity insurance here is fine.

We had “illegal” windows installed in our last house (wooden, joiner made and no FENSA certificate) when we came to sell we had to get the indemnity insurance. 15 years later the windows are still there and looking good!

@Worried1305 this is a good idea however the risk is if the council won’t give the sign off or say they will sign off but corrective work is needed which the seller won’t do or can’t afford etc then you can’t get indemnity insurance as the council already know about the work not having building regs.
edited to add that after so long the local authority can’t enforce work done without building regs sign off, so when you come to sell if it hasn’t got BR sign off you would sell on the basis its outside of the enforcement period anyway

We have a whole section of our house that doesn’t have building regs. It is an attached barn that has planning permission to be converted to a holiday let. The vendors did enough that they satisfied planning. I think they put some windows in. And nothing was ever signed off. We have indemnity insurance to cover it.

Honestly, unless you have major building works planned, no one from the council is going to have any idea how many bathrooms you have. They have bigger fish to fry. I would have it checked and I would get the indemnity insurance and I wouldn’t think any more of it.

Is it a legal connection to the sewer? If it's not you're liable should any issue arise. I bang on about sewer abuse as its my job.

I'd make sure that everything is above board before progressing.

If the vendors pull out rather than get the approval that probably tells you all you need to know and they'll have done you a favour.