Accidentally reported the house we are buying to building control

[Neet90]

The house we are buying has a structure supporting/ strengthening one of the beams. We had gone back and forth through solicitors about the work and if there were building regulations. The solicitor suggested we contact the water board directly about another matter so I thought I would be proactive and contact the council about the supported beam also, particularly as due to rot other beams may need replacing once we move in and it would be useful to know what approvals we would need. I sent the council relevant information and now our solicitor has frightened me saying that I have reported them, placed their house on notice, they have informed the sellers solicitor, said there is no possibility of indemnity insurance and we could be sued, our mortgage is at risk etc etc. This was clearly foolish of me but I had no idea at the time and now it seems this is yet another thing to worry about and I'm so nervous. I've no doubt upset the sellers and may have jeopardised it all.

I don't believe the extension has planning permission either. I understand that after 10 years it is unlikely that any action will be taken by the council's building department but it is a worry. We would hope to knock through a couple of walls at some point down the line and this would require building regs, but by inviting them in to check that work it may highlight the lack of planning permission and building regs from long ago. I know we have screwed our chances of indemnity insurance after contacting the council about the house, though I don't believe it has actually been passed to the building control department. How do we know if the house is in fact 'on notice'? Will hopefully hear back from structural engineer soon about the beam support. I appreciate everyone's comments so thank you!

When is the SE coming round?

OP. Your solicitor should be advising you more thoroughly on this. You can't be expected to know that by contacting building control that this would cause an indemnity issue.

As others said, at this stage you should ask your sellers to get a retrospective building regulation certificate, yes a bit time consuming/costly but this is the absolute reassurance that the work is structurally sound.

If, you decide that you still want to proceed with indemnity insurance (which I wouldn't recommend) you can release the entire contents of your email and your telephone conversation to the indemnity provider and ask that they review this to see if they will still offer insurance based on the content of those phone calls and those emails.

In all honesty, given the depth of information you have passed to building control, you are unlikely to even get a tailored policy at this stage.

I think it's time to take the bull by the horns and ask your sellers to deal with retrospective sign off now, they may ask you to meet some of the costs for doing this out of courtesy, but that's up to you.

Basically just get it signed off and move forward.

It's really frustrating when solicitors make you feel as though you have done something wrong when you are out of your depth in an unfamiliar process.

My buyer did this to me over a structure (balcony) that had been installed two previous owners back as well as something to do with a chimney that the previous owner may have done something to (thankfully they had not, it just looked like it superficially). My own solicitor was probably negligent in not raising these queries on purchase. A visit from the building control inspector thankfully offered a simple solution: turn the access door into a window and bingo, balcony is just for show. Terrifying at the time to think we had lots of people, including children, on it watching the carnival. I was furious with the buyer at the time for making a fuss about it when she could have just been sensible and not used it but we got through it in the end.

You cannot expect a buyer to agree to not use a balcony. It’s unreasonable to sell it as unusable! It’s a balcony! The expectation is that you can stand or sit on it when you want.

I think you need to read the SE report very carefully. If there is anything else wrong, you need it priced up to rectify the structure. Otherwise you really won’t be worrying about just a non available insurance policy.

was furious with the buyer at the time for making a fuss about it when she could have just been sensible and not used it but we got through it in the end.

WTAF! Your buyer did absolutely nothing wrong

Honestly OP, whilst I can see that if you’re a solicitor and you’re trying to sort this stuff out smoothly then what has happened is probably irritating, from the perspective of a non legal person who is buying a house, I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong at all.

The vendors said it didn’t need regs (seems unlikely but let’s go with it..) You’ve taken appropriate measures to check that. So, if they aren’t lying then the council can look at it and say it doesn’t need anything and the sale can continue- no need for indemnity or certificates or anything.

If what the vendor has told you isn’t true then I think that’s a good thing to know! Why lie? It’s not a very difficult process to have sound work signed off. Why have work done a year ago and not get that done? Especially if you were thinking of selling. The indemnity policy is a red herring- if you know that it doesn’t need regs then you don’t need the policy. If it does need regs sign off and it doesn’t have it then getting it isn’t difficult for sound work. Presumably an engineer did some calcs for the support- shouldn’t be difficult to get hold of as it wasn’t long ago, and the structure is visible without removing plaster etc so this shouldn’t be hard. So the problem is if it does need regs and the work isn’t good- better to know about that now than when something falls down....

I really don’t think it’s you who has made this house unsellable.

@taybert I think the support was designed by a contractor, I don't think there are calculations but there are now details of the work on the invoice.

I gather we shouldn't worry about the lack of planning permission or building regulations for the extension according to our solicitor. Hopefully we wouldn't run into issues when/ if we come to sell it too.

We should get the structural engineers support soon which will give more insight into the effectiveness of the beam and it's support. Maybe if it's not going to be too expensive to replace we could try and do it when we move in.

If we use a private building control company rather than the council for the beam replacement or any other future works does that mean we protect ourselves from the council having a nose and finding issue with other things including the extension?

The council does not have the time, resources or inclination to randomly start investigating things on a whim unless they have significant concerns. So unless the extension looks like it's going to fall down any second, seriously stop worrying about it, the council will not care at all. I would generally prefer to use council building control rather than private, especially for something like this.

For the more recent work, I would be concerned about issues with mortgage etc if it does need rectifying. I can't imagine too many lenders being happy with a mortgage if they've got a structural engineers report saying there's a problem. There's also a risk that any estimated costs change when you actually do it. But this all does depend on how big an issue we are talking about. If it's a relatively minor fault that would be easy to rectify and the mortgage company isn't bothered then taking the risk might be worth it to make sure you get the house in the timescales you want.

I was furious with the buyer at the time for making a fuss about it when she could have just been sensible and not used it

Are you thinking that OP should do similar, and not use the rooms above the cellar? Or would it be better to get is regularised so she can use the entire house she is paying for?

I would hate to be involved with you in a house purchase.

I was furious with the buyer at the time for making a fuss about it when she could have just been sensible and not used it but we got through it in the end.

Honestly, this exemplifies everything that is wrong with the house buying process when it comes to alterations and regs. Why on earth should the new buyer be obliged to take on your bad decisions and lack of diligence when it comes to something as critical as an unsafe balcony? This attitude is utterly ridiculous.

@flouncyfanny @whatscomingoverthehill
If it's only the beam that will be a potential issue then we can probably take the hit and rectify this when we move in rather than causing more stress and hassle now. We had our structural engineer report back today and it was pretty reassuring about the beam in particular. The solicitor says the mortgage company has no issues and from what other posters have said the solicitor has a huge legal obligation to them also so fingers crossed it all works out. The solicitor thinks we are going round in circles and we should just commkt or walkaway, she feels there is nothing more to be done. Hopefully I've panicked over something that we can resolve ourselves.

I was furious with the buyer at the time for making a fuss about it when she could have just been sensible and not used it but we got through it in the end.

You were furious because the buyer made a fuss about an unsafe balcony?? What are you on about they should have just not used it that is actually a shocking and terrible attitude! Your thought process is baffling.

I know of someone whose daughter fell off a roof terrace because not properly signed off by building regs ( not a big drunken party ) . She is still in a wheelchair . I do not mean to be a doom merchant but e.g. balconies / roof terraces / safety things . I know people sometimes think building regs can seem annoying but - they are there to keep people safe

I have tutted at building regs before but - you know what - I can sleep safely at night knowing the house has been signed off .

I am not sure I would sleep well at night knowing I had sold a house with an unsafe balcony.

If the beam is not a huge problem and you are able to fix it and has been signed off - then all good as long as you know the problem.

The thing is, it isn’t / wasn’t your house and therefore it wasn’t your place to contact the council or anybody about it...I know you realise this now but if I was the vendor I’d be pretty unhappy too tbh.

We saw a house for sale agent said take a look. Was ok but too small, then they took us up a little stair case into the roof void. Up there was a big room and bathroom. It was freezing OH said obviously not up to code re: building regs. What was odd was that it was not on the agents details, so either the agents had sussed it was not legal or the sellers had not shown it to the agent.

DS bought his first home a small terrace cottage with a kitchen extension which was botched. It was discovered there was no planning on it. DS got round it by having a legal extension designed and knocking it down.

We bought a house two years ago, had the usual hassle of forms wanting receipts for the windows, boiler, etc. The trouble was the previous owners had not put either in so had no idea when things had been done because they had bought off a builder who had a reputation for buying, fixing up and selling on.

Well here is a funny story ( well not so ) a person I know told me of a friend of who had dodgy builders. When her gas cooker conked out - they had put a couple of canisters buried in the garden and she did not have a proper gas supply. No building regs applied. Cash in hand and no building regs. I think I believe it but , nonetheless building regs are there for a purpose.

Is there any update OP? What did the SE say?

She's already updated Trigle.

OP I’d be furious! How dare the solicitor speak to you like that! You’re not a child and are paying a lot of money for professional services so you should expect to be dealt with in a polite, professional and respectful manner. Anyone who thought they could give me a telling off would receive very short shrift and be sacked.

So you’ve reported them. So what? It’s not illegal to dob someone in. No doubt they’re annoyed because they thought they could sell you a lemon with dodgy building works and now they’ve found they can’t. I don’t see how you can be liable in any way for their failure to follow planning laws.

The bottom line is, the sellers broke the law and have done potentially unsafe building work. They needed reporting! I wouldn’t have accepted indemnity insurance in that situation anyway, I’d have insisted that the work must be properly inspected and signed off. Worst case scenario you walk away because they can’t get approval, which is exactly what you should be doing anyway.