Loft conversion incomplete. Guesstimate £ to fix pls?

[Wishiwasanheiress]

Hey,

We have an offer on a house. It's a 3bed semi with loft conversion. It's quite attractive, very light but doesn't fulfil regs due to there being no wall and door to the stairs to seperate the space and presumably stop fire etc.....?

I'd like to know roughly how much a loft conversion could cost as plainly the vendor thinks she can add it onto the house value.

Should we be successful how much approx could it be to put in a wall and door? Couple grand? More?

I don't get why u wouldn't do this at the time. I'm also struggling as to why she views it as a 4bed when it isn't. It's presently a room but not a bedroom. If I stick a bed in the dining room it doesn't make it 5 does it?!

What you need to check is if the loft conversion falls within Permitted Development Right, whether she has a certificate of lawfulness to confirm the conversion is a lawful development. Although not required by law, but with the certificate, it will give you the peace of mind.

Secondly, if the conversion has not comply with current Building Regulations, she will not have a completion certificate from the council. You can then argue with her that you need to do all the work to make it comply with current building regulations.

It is difficult to say how much it will cost to make it building regs compliant until you have a building control officer from the council to inspect the work, it is not just the wall and door for fire escape, but also if the structure is sound, with proper insulation, electric is done and signed off by a proper electrician etc.

Hope this helps.

It does. A lot. She's priced herself about 40k above the nearest recent years sales judging by zoopla. We went in below asking price but she seems (blindly) determind it's a 4 bed although it isn't and isn't marked up as such. Probs will walk away. Shame but some people are weird!

It won't be marketed as such because it would be illegal to use that room as a permanent bedroom so the EA can't call it four bedrooms. Are you sure the only thing missing is a wall and door in order to call it a fourth bedroom? It seems odd that the vendor wouldn't have done that at the time. I presume it has a fixed staircase to the loft?

The walls, door and staircase are about complying with Fire escape building regs, but it depends on the layout on the rest of the house, so it may not be as simple as putting a fire rated door in the loft conversion.

The simple question to ask is, 'Have you notify Building Control from the Council to inspect the work?' If not, I will be very careful about buying the property as it may cost you a lot of money just to rectify any potential problems.

Sometimes I cannot believe why people spent the money to do these conversion without professional help and getting the work certify.

what you must do is obtain a copy of the building regs completion certificate. If there is one she has probably removed the ground floor wall and door to create an open plan lounge through room as it may have been before. this is a breach of building regs and invalidates the home insurance. It wouldn't cost much to build a partition wall I suppose which can be negotiated on the price. you'll have to decide if you still like the house with the wall up!!

We have bought a similar house but was sold as a 3 bed and we knew what we were getting into. Unless it has been signed off don't touch it with a barge pole.

We are converting ours properly but it significantly more costly than just doing the original conversion properly as lots of ripping out to do! Most builders aren't keen as they can't prove previous work complies with current building regs so have to do it all again!

If it is a non-compliant conversion it adds negative value to the house because you have to budget for the cost and upheaval of ripping it all out and doing it again properly.

If it was done on the cheap without BRs I expect the floors are wrong.

Keep looking, there will always be another.

She cannot sell it as a 4 bed if the room isn't officially habitable. tbh you should only pay what it is worth without it as you may have to start over again.