Help! Has anyone been through the regularistion process?

[Whereareyouscooter]

We've been incredibly lucky and got an offer on our property within 24 hours of being on the market but are now terrified we are going to lose the sale due to the lack of building regs on our extension. We only had the extension done last year to replace a falling down conservatory put on by the previous owners. We checked with planning and found that it would come under permitted rights but we didn't realise that it would still need building regs. I know this sounds incredibly stupid but we had a very hard year with our child being seriously ill and spending lots of time in hospital so we just left the work to the builders. It turns out the builders were very busy with multiple jobs on at the same time and so ignored building regs in favour of getting the job done (& paid for) asap. The builders insist that the work is up to scratch and are willing to uncover (& make good) whatever a building inspector needs to see. We would of course be willing to do any work necessary if it turns out that any elements don't comply. My question is, will this cause a huge delay on our sale? I'm so worried about it.

I had to do this before putting our house on the market. About a decade ago, we had two rooms knocked into one, with an RSJ put in, and somehow we 'forgot' to get building regs at the time.

I rang the council's planning department and they sent a man (structural engineer type) round within a few weeks. It took him an hour or so to take some measurements and ask me lots of questions about the work. I also, thankfully, had kept the original structural engineer's calculations and receipts for materials, which helped. The whole process was pretty straightforward and cost about £120 IIRC.

Crack on and you'll be fine

Prob won't delay it much.

Get on ASAP to building control and get them to come pout - builder sounds v reasonable re offering to uncover and make good.

We did but it wasn't as complex as your situation.

The previous owners had made some modifications and didn't get building regs approval. I was reasonably sure that the work complied with the regs though so we were happy to go ahead with the sale. The solicitor recommended that we buy an insurance policy to cover the liability but I wasn't satisfied with that. I was able to submit the application with fairly sketchy descriptions and wild estimates and there was no trouble. It took a few weeks though.

We had to get retrospective building regs on a flat that was converted 30 years ago. It was a pain because it was entirely at the Building Inspectors discretion and we had to comply with today's regs rather than the regs at the time which were more onerous. He also changed his mind a number of times and then changed inspectors when one left and went through it all again. 4 years and £5,000 worth of work in the end (which we successfully claimed back from negligent lawyers who hadn't pointed out no building regs!!). It was a complete PITA but we got there in the end.

Hopefully with your work being only done a year ago and your builder still around and onside it should be a swift thing to get done. Indemnity policies only usually cost £25 or so if buyer will accept that.

Thanks for the advice. I've phoned building regs today and made the application...and got told off by the building inspector too :( Unfortunately we couldn't get the indemnity insurance as the work has to be over 12 months old. I've now got to tell our buyers that there will be an inevitable delay and offer them a good will gesture. I really hope they don't decide to pull out.