Feeling really stupid right now and worrying that this will massively cock things up for our house sale. Bear with me, this is a bit long to explain:
Our chain was meant to exchange today or tmw, but during their final checks, our buyer’s solicitor has asked for a building certificate that we don’t have.
I sent all our certificates promptly in the first few weeks of the Conveyancing process. Building control, electrics, gas safety, windows etc.
We did an extension and renovation 5 years ago, at which point I was pregnant and then had a newborn, so I left my husband to deal with building control. We got the certificate and I remember thinking “Great. That’s the final bit of the renovation ticked off, don’t have to think about that again now!” But it turns out that the work wasn’t all covered under one certificate, we are actually meant to have two (one for the extension, and another one for removing a load bearing wall and taking out a chimney breast). The other completion certificate was never issued. We never chased it as we didn’t realise it was a separate application until it came up in our buyers searches and the solicitor asked for the other certificate.
The same building control officer came out to inspect all the work. And the chimney and load bearing wall was actually finished before the extension, so we know he would have signed off on it, it was the first thing he inspected and he was back several times after that to inspect the extension. it seems he just forgot to process it, and we never chased it up. We have a very long email paper trail where he asks questions about that part of the work and concludes that he has seen all he needs to.
To make matters worse, on top of covid, the council is in financial crisis at the moment, building control are not taking phone calls. I emailed to request the completion certificate, and have been told that there isn’t a completion certificate as the work was never signed off and we’ll need to arrange a site visit in order to get the work signed off.
The building control guy in question no longer works there unfortunately. I’ve asked them to go back and look at the paper trail so they can see that someone has already been out to visit the site (5 year ago!) numerous times and already inspected that part of the work....what are the odds of this getting resolved any time soon or have we inadvertently messed up things for the entire chain (who need to complete in the next few weeks)?