Buyer enquiries/extension built 1980

[Missehelm]

Hi all

We are currently in the process of buyer enquiries, we accepted the offer for our house on 27th Aug which was great it had only been up a week. We were under the initial impression that the buyer wanted to complete by th 30th Oct! So we've set up a house all ready to be signed. Here we are nearly 3 months down line all was going well until the solicitors on both ends some how didn't manage to communicate for over 3 weeks!!! Due to a technical error ! Not one of them thought to pick up a phone. It took us pushing and phoning and even contacting the buyer to get things moving. They've gone back and forth with buyer enquiries which is going to happen but should have been felt with way before now they keep going over same issues ! There's nothing wrong with our house even his structural survey proved that! But now there on about the garage extension is the bedroom above my garage this had planning approval as is on council website thing is it's over 30 years old so no paper work is kept ! It's ancient and not to be bound by today's building regs but apparently in there eyes it's an unsafe unsupported extension ! Which is a load of bull because they can't get paper work on it with it been that old.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation ? We're are getting to end of our tether:(

[JoJoSM2]

Well, can’t you just say that paperwork isn’t available? They can take it or leave it.

We’ve got a house that had a very dodgy extension built in the past: no foundations, single skin walls and a few other bodges. There was no paperwork for it either. We went ahead with the purchase and have spent £££ rectifying all the issues and rebuilding some bits.

I don’t know if their surveyor found something or they’re just being cautious but I can totally understand where they’re coming from.

[Knittedbreasts]

Hi we had a similar issue. Our loft conversion was done in the same year. They can't ask you to take it down and indemnity won't cover it as it's over ten years. Our experience was sad, theu demanded retrospective planning consent or 27k off the asking price. We refused and they walked away. Offer indemnity if it appeases them otherwise they may ask for money off. Good luck I hope your story turns out better.

[wowfudge]

I think I would wryly reply that it's been up for over 30 years so surely any issues would have manifested themselves by now, as would the structural survey. The council will have archived the planning application file but to be honest it wouldn't be any help as regards the structure. Building regs didn't come in until after your extension was built.

It is what it is in an older house, no regulations have been contravened and either they proceed or they don't, but you need to know what they want to do asap so you can re-market it if necessary. Some people should only ever buy new builds.

[wowfudge]

And their structural survey would have shown.

[thereinmadnesslies]

Did you build the extension?
We had similar from the buyer of my late mother’s house. There was a late 70s extension built by the previous owners but no paperwork other than a record on the planning portal of permission granted. We had to be quite blunt in the end and told them that it was being sold as seen, it was unreasonable of them to expect paperwork from that long ago, the house was sensibly priced and it was up to them to carry out their own searches and inspections. It turned out they were going to extend over the extension, so essentially they wanted to know about the foundations. We pointed out we were selling the house not it’s potential for an extension. In the end the sale went through without any price reduction, but it was stressful.

[Missehelm]

Good news they've finally got over that and we have a date they want to complete by 4th dec. I tell you I've never been so stressed lol thank you everyone for taking the time to reply to me :) appreciate it. X