Advice needed on buying three bed with a loft bedroom

[igglu]

I'm in the process of buying a three-bed house with the third bedroom in the loft. I assumed this was a loft conversion, but nothing came back on the searches with proof of building regs approval for it.

We've asked the vendor to provide the documentation but they haven't received any as yet. However, the estate agent has said that the property has always had the loft bedroom, from being built. The property is about 100 years old.

What documentation could prove this? My solicitor is being pretty useless in suggesting what could be provided. but I'm reluctant to buy at the price of a three bed, if it should only really be a two bed with a floored out loft. The process is dragging on now and I'm keen to push it forward but seem to have hit a dead end. Can anyone help? Thanks!

I don't think Victorian houses had loft bedrooms, so it's likely a conversion. Are you worried that it can't technically be classes as a bedroom so you can't sell the property on in the future as a 3 bed? Otherwise, does it matter whether it's an original or later addition?

The loft rooms were called attic rooms and a large number of city houses had them.

Are there old property details available?

We had this palaver with our first house, a Victorian terrace with an original loft bedroom. A bit of digging found that all the houses in that stretch were built the same and evidencing this was enough to satisfy solicitor/lender.

It could well come down to a judgement call by yourself/solicitor based on what the vendor says. There likely will be no documentation, as is the case with lots of aspects of 'old' houses.

My mum's Victorian house sort of had a loft bedroom. well two. They were in the roof but there was still a sort of loft for storage. There was an old staircase leading up and a small landing between the rooms. It would be very obvious if it was a new conversation. My house is Victorian with a converted attic and we have the paperwork but it's also very obviously recent and we only have eaves space for storage.

If it’s an old house and the attic was originally used as a room, surely it will have an original window opening?

In our old Victorian house it was in the house plans, I actually went down and got the floor plans from local archives which showed the room was an attic room.
A lot of Victorian houses had an attic room that does not count as a loft conversion, I sent the plans I had to our buyers when they asked.

Our Victorian terraced house was built with an attic. It had a proper boxed-in staircase, and a single small roof light above head height.

However we’ve since had it gutted, as part of a reroofing job, and it now has an open staircase and 4 small Velux windows, so it probably looks like a modern conversion (except that many of the houses like this here had original attics, since modernised, so it’s generally accepted).

I’ve no idea whether the attic shows in the original plans though. It was built in 1892 (I think - I don’t even know where the plans are! )

There are still 5 chimney pots on our stack, 4 now capped off but still visible - 2 ground floor, 2 first floor and 1 attic. Can you see what’s on the one you’re looking at?

Thanks everyone :)

@jellybean30 yes, I'm worried about resale value if I want to sell it on in a few year's time. I don't really mind if it's a conversion or not other than for that reason.

@Brusca can I ask how you confirmed all the houses were the same? I think that would be enough to set my mind at ease. The estate agent said as much, but when I look on rightmove some of them have the loft room and some don't, but they could be different layouts as there's a mix on the street.

@umbel it does I think, but it looks like it's been replaced with a velux style window at some point.

@Sammilouwho I think that might have to be my course of action. I asked my solicitor if it would show on the deeds but she said no, it would just show the footprint, so it would be great if the plans show the layout.

thanks again everyone, this has really helped :)

@igglu, I pulled out of a house in the Summer because of this exact situation. However, it wasn't a Victorian property, the loft conversion we think was done 15yrs ago (never listen to what the EA tells you, they will always say it pre-dated building regs etc). After discussions with my solicitor and surveyor, I decided to pull out. I was advised it was £my discretion" on whether we referred it to Lender, and Lender would most likely withdraw mortgage offer (have a search on MN). Even if I chose not to refer it, I would be potentially held to ransom by a future buyer when I come to sell. I was not prepared to take the risk; furthermore I understand it can have implications on insurance also. IN my case the sellers said "it needs a door to comply with building regs", but in fact there was substandard insultation, no fire doors (therefore risk of fire spreading) and no protected means of escape. We don't think the floor was adequately strengthened either.
Sellers will argue "loft room is storage only", however as soon as you put in fixed stairs, heating etc, it is a habitable room. You can't just call it storage so that you can void building regs. They are there for a reason.

@igglu, I should add that mine was a 3 bedroom plus loft. If yours is a 3 bedroom including the loft room, then your mortgage lender will want to know, as the loft room is not technically a bedroom without the paperwork in place.

@igglu, sorry another post. The seller needs to get a regularisation cert. from the local authourity. However, they will need to prive when works were done and ensure compliance with building regs at the time. My seller went to the Council, and the Council gave a long list of issues, and said that because they now knew of the illegal loft conversion, they would expect either 1) reinstatement of original loft or) improvements to comply with builing regs. Could have been £50k worth of work and my Seller didn't budge. I didn't want to make this my problem!

thanks @areyouhavingagiraffe. That's another of my worries, that the mortgage lender will withdraw the mortgage if we can't prove it's always been a bedroom.

When I had the survey done I asked the surveyor to report on whether it would meet current regs or not and it won't. That's not such a problem if it's always been a room, but definitely is if it's been converted.

I think I just went out the back and took photos which showed they were all the same. Possibly the seller confirmed this. It really was obvious that it was original due to the stairs, door, bannister and T&G panelling matching up with the rest of the house. This was over 20 years ago though and things may have changed since then.

I guess if it's a heavily renovated house it's harder for the surveyor to tell, with mine it was clear that it wasn't a new addition.

@igglu, the other thing is that I naively thought the Lender would already know that it would not have BR. i.e when they did their valuation. But I then learnt it is up to the conveyancing solicitor to raise any issues (red flags) to the Lender. The Lender assumes the Solicitor will do this and this is their safety net regarding whether paperwork is in place. Can you tell I have learnt a lot about conveyancing, building regs and illegal conversions! My surveyor told me "a 3 bed house with an illegal loft conversion is worth less than a 3 bedroom house". Anyway it was causing me sleepless nights so I walked away. I broke the chain and proceeded with my Sale

@areyouhavingagiraffe I remember your posts as we had something similar, buying a house with 3 beds and a loft room and the lender withdrew the offer unless they would get a building regs cert so we pulled out.

However at the time I was selling a Victorian terrace which did have an attic room with no certificate, as it was the original room. I could tell this by the window opening it wasn’t a velux it was a window in the side of the roof with the original lintels. The terrace was back to back and the house at the back had an identical window in the same place. It’s plausible it is original. Can you send a link or pic so we can have a look?

Some tips for working out whether it was original- if it has a fireplace and a “proper” window or very old fashioned window then it might be original. Also look at the stairs. Best way would be to look at any other houses on the street if it’s a terrace and see if they have attic rooms and, if so, are they the same. You should find all the details on Rightmove, just search for sold properties on the same road.

@Orangecrisp, I remember you! In fact I was feeling so down in the dumps about withdrawing from that blasted house (and contemplating whether I did the right thing) and then I saw your post about the Lender withdrawing, and that confirmed to me that I had dodged a bullet!

We had this recently, and our surveyor gave us a very useful tip. If you install google earth pro (the application, not the website) on a Windows computer you can change the time of the view. We were able to see the loft extension in the 1940s on the aerial view. Details here www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/how-to-go-back-in-time-on-google-earth%3famp

Thanks so much everyone. I'm going to download google earth pro and see what that shows, on the normal version it does show almost every house with a loft window. I've just spoken to the EA and they're going to send me some info around other houses that have sold with the same layout and I'm trying to track down the original plans. I hope I can confirm it as I really like the house and it's got so much space for the price compared to others, so fingers crossed!