Retrospective building regs

[HeleneW123]

Hello everyone,
I am in a very unfortunate situation in that my husband and I completed work on our house and were totally ignorant of building regs (gutted).
We are now coming to sell and the estate agent has flagged that we need a completion certificate.
We basically removed 2 internal walls, and three chimney breast's with the stack. The walls were not load-bearing and we have had a structural engineer around who confirmed this. But he said for retrospective approval they may still open the walls to check.
I am wondering if anyone has applied for retrospective consent? How long did the process take and did they open the walls?
We are living abroad which makes the whole thing harder - a total nightmare!!

I'm not sure if this helps but my DH is toying with the idea of buying a local second property; a conversion. He knows all about building regs/completion certs etc and he knows that the house he's looking at has not been signed off because some of the work doesn't meet the current building standards. We know planning permission has been applied for the work thats been done we found it on line but as some of it doesn't meet the building regs it cannot have certified on completion by building controls officer/district surveyor. He said he doubted anyone would get mortgage without the certificate but he is a cash buyer so this is not relevant to him, secondly it will effect the price especially as the work would need to be changed to meet current building regulations, thirdly knowing it can't have been signed off my DH is wondering why it wasn't signed off what else has been done incorrectly that you cant see quite so easily?
With regard to planning permission (my dissertation was on planning, yawn, but it was quite a long time ago) a lot depends on your individual council, what you've done, does it comply with building regulations, and you're particular house. Some councils are very blasé and will nearly always grant retrospective planning, I interviewed two planning officers from two district councils both said it wasn't worth the effort declining retrospective planning applications, what misdone is done, others are notoriously fussy e.g Sevenoaks used to have reputation for declining retrospective applications and make a big deal about everything. If your house is listed or in a conservation area again you may have trouble. Having said this our neighbour did some work without applying for planning, my other slightly vindictive neighbour grassed her up to the district council, we live in listed houses, a conservation area and our district council is known to be fussy she applied for retrospective planning permission and got it no problem in fact I suspect if she'd applied before doing the work she wouldn't have got exactly what she has, as believe it or not in my area we're not usually allowed to paint wooden external structures/doors they've to "weather naturally"! But once you've painted something with 5 coats of -hideous- bright coloured varnish/paint the council have to realistic, its hard to change it.
Applying for planning doesn't have to be a very lengthy process you apply on line, the council notify your neighbours/make it public, if my memory serves me right for 28 day then at the next monthly meeting look at your plans, any thought from conservations officers or bat expert etc, objections from neighbours and then often ignore them because they're usually not legal reasons for declining planning, check any building work meets with building control regulations either approve it decline it or ask for some changes in your plan which you then resubmit. The building control officer would then visit your home checks the work is as stated in your planning application and then issues a completion cert. Of course with Covid19 etc this all may take longer.
There's a lot of rubbish talked about planning even from so called experts who are often charging large fees. The best thing you can do in the first instance is contact your local council planning dept for advise, they will tell you exactly what you need to do.

Thank you @happywearingmymaskallday!!
We don't need planning permission as the work doesn't fall under that, we just need building regs to issue a completion certificate but as they didn't check the work through the process it is tricky.
The building is not listed and we use qualified tradespeople so all the work is compliant.
Do you know the reputation of Greenwich council?!
I think I'll try and call them tonight 😬

I don't know about Greenwich I'm afraid just give them a call. I interviewed loads of councils when I did my dissertation all were really helpful and frankly mostly staffed by pragmatists.
I will say using "qualified trades people" doesn't guarantee the work will be compliant. We couldn't even get two surveyors who claimed they specialised in listed building work to agree on some of requirements for the work on our house that's why your local council are the best people to get advise from.

This is really common and often comes up in conveyancing transactions. You may be better off asking a solicitor or conveyancer for advice before you phone the council. I don't know if this is still correct but legal indemnity insurance used to be used to deal with this situation, but only if the seller had not contacted the local authority and therefore flagged it up.

@happywearingmymaskallday thanks so much!! It was my husband and his colleagues who did the work, he was a builder at a very large firm in the city, so it is definitely all to code.
Hopefully the council agrees!
Thanks again

Also, decent builders usually sort building regs out. Are you sure yours didn't?

thanks @luzina, I have looked at the indemnity policy option but the estate agent is telling us that given it's quite a lot of work a buyer is unlikely to accept it and it will hold up the sale.
I'll ring the council anonymously and see what they say. If we go down the retrospective route we could still list it for sale I suppose and just say that paperwork is pending.

Just call the planning office and get them round to look, Building regs are quite straight forward, although it does depend on how long ago the work was done, if it’s all obvious there was no load bearing of the walls removed this will be obvious to any sensible planning department, just make Sure you have certificates for any wiring, gas work completed and if you have any pictures of the work show them, I sent plans in and was told I needed full planning approval to remove internal walls and chimney, but once I explained there was nothing load bearing they just did the usual checks on workmanship, unless you have done something badly wrong, like installing illegal stairs/ ladders to a dodgy loft conversion, you should have no problem and if they do find something you’ll just have to rectify it . Your only other option is indemnity insurance, without one or the other you won’t be able to sell it

I don't understand. If your husband is a builder and did the work, surely he knew he had to get building regs. We had some work done and our builder did all the liaison with the local council re regs. We didn't need planning permission but did need building regs, and they came out 5 times I think to inspect what was being done.

What is your husbands explanation for there being no Certificate of Completion?

if your husband is a builder, how come he didn't get the local building inspector in to check compliance with building regs, so the certificate could be issued on completion.

Thanks, @user1471528245 appreciated!
He asked his colleagues/company director at work what was required and they all said that we didn't need anything for the work we did. We checked the council website but as we hadn't heard of building regs we didn't know to check for that as well as planning permission.
He worked for a very large firm building in Chelsea so he thought his managers would know the score, but I guess those projects are all managed by an engineer who would do the applications.
We know the work is safe as he is extremely competent, sadly we were advised incorrectly at the time.

as we hadn't heard of building regs we didn't know to check for that as well as planning permission.

OP I'm seriously struggling to understand how a competent and experienced builder has never heard of building regs.

He trained in another country and worked for a big firm so he didn’t handle that side of the business.

Indemnity insurance is the answer