Building regs indemnity policy

[JoWickham1]

Hi, I wonder if anyone has any info on building regs indemnity policies.
We are in the process of buying a house. It turns out that there is an issue with building regs on a conservatory attached to the house. Basically the wall between the kitchen and conservatory has been knocked though therefore making the conservatory part of the house instead of it being a separate structure connected to the outside wall of the house. The conservatory was added to the house in 2009. As there is no outside wall dividing the kitchen from the conservatory it means that the it does not follow building regs and the sellers have taken out an indemnity policy for this. Due to this the estate agent said that we would not be able to demolish the conservatory and build in its place until a certain number of years has passed. Is this correct? Could we after a period of time demolish and rebuild without any issues from council, planning or building regs? What does the indemnity policy actually do?

All the indemnity policy does is insure against the tiny risk of building control taking enforcement action.

it doesn't insure against the structure falling down/cracking etc and it certainly won't stop all the heat escaping through the hole and out the conservatory! (Most conservatories are such poor insulators it may as well be a hole to the outside.)

I think your EA is talking bollocks. If you want to knock the conservatory down and rebuild then the building regulations dept will be delighted if what you want to replace it with meets standards. What you cannot do with an indemnity policy is try to get retrospective permission for the breach as, by informing the local authority of the breach, you would be nullifying the insurance.

Lalalonglegs is correct. Also, building control has no power to enforce a non compliant alteration if over a year has passed since the alteration was made and it is not dangerous. Indemnity policies are so cheap because they are either unenforceable or never called on. A waste of money. Sounds like you have nothing to worry about.