Problems with buying new conversion. Arrrgh!

[TremoloGreen]

Has anyone got any experience of buying/selling a newly converted flat?

We are buying a newly converted flat (old building though ~1820) and the developer has turned round part-way through conveyancing and said he doesn't want to get Building Life Plan certificates that give the new conversion a ten-year warranty. I think it is a cost-saving exercise as they would cost about £3k per flat. Very few mortgage providers would agree to lend the money without them and I think it would be an issue getting insurance. Worst problem would be selling the flat as we don't plan to stay there 10 years!

Does anyone have any knowledge about these certificates and what we can/can't do without them?

What would you do? Walk away? The EA is trying to persuade him that this is madness, but if he doesn't see sense I was thinking we could offer him half the cost (most we could afford) but make this payable on completion of the purchase. This is our second attempt to purchase a flat after our first fell through, losing us about £3k We are living in temporary accommodation with all our stuff in storage and the whole thing is so crap, I'm getting really stressed.

we recently had a flat in NW london fall through for exactly the same reason!
The flat was a convertion of a victorian four floor semi.
We were buying a buy to let and applied for a 75% mortgage.
The mortgage company refused to offer as we were buying from a property developer who had converted the house into 12 flats.
We were also gutted to walk away after spending on searches etc.
in the meantime we used an independant mortgage adviser who told us he could have got us a mortgage with Birmingham Midshires because they are one of the only lenders who are not against property developing.
Hope this helps.