Offer accepted! But is third bedroom actually a third bedroom?

[Catnipdelight]

Last night found a property (at last) that ticked all our boxes and had an offer accepted (£5k over asking). There were seven offers yesterday after 20 viewings (madness).

We have stretched our budget for this place as we really love it... but DP has just raised a potential issue. The smallest bedroom has a vaulted ceiling which actually only has a skylight, no windows.

Can this actually be classed as a bedroom? I don't want to get to the mortgage valuation and find it is only classed as a 2 bed, mainly because we won't have the money to bridge the gap. I still love the property, it's more a technicality that means we are paying over the odds for what is on paper a 2 bed.

The agent and listing had it as a 3 bed so I wouldn't even have queried it but DP has had experience of all the regs with bedrooms after having his own issues with a conversion he did.

Do we raise it now, or risk the undervaluation and hope they are prepared to reduce the price a bit?

A sky light is a window. Many loft conversions just have sky lights. Is this in a loft conversion? Can you look up on the planning portal if it has building regs?

A skylight is a window.

And congratulations for finding a house you love so much. I hope it goes smoothly.

If your valuation comes back lower then you can argue that anyone else’s would too and ask them to drop the price.

3 of my bedrooms have skylights - building regs signed them off as bedrooms

How high up are they? Can you put in a regular window?

Thanks for the replies! The thing is I thought there were rules around velux windows and accessibility? This vaulted ceilings is double height and so there's no escape route in case of a fire. Other properties we've seen have all had some sort of measure for escape (eg bizarrely low windows that you could climb out of)

The critical thing is did they have planning permission and building regs. Planning permission as others have said will be on the LA portal. Building regs will be part of conveyancing process.

I think the minimum height is 2.2m for it to be classed as a habitable room. Otherwise it’s just an attic and the valuation should reflect that.

There's no legal requirement for a bedroom to have a window. So long as you can fit a bed in it and it meets building regs for fire escape purposes, it's a bedroom.

It's the fire escape issue that most often causes the issue you fear. Bedrooms must have their own doorway to the hall/stairs escape route, not be accessed via a different room. If they are an attic conversion there are further regulations for ceiling height and fire doors etc.

If none of that is relevant then you are fine. I don't think you have over-offered.

We own a hose with an attic room that doesn't qualify as a bedroom as the skylights are too small and a couple of inches too high. The conversion predated the building regs. According to mortgage, council etc its a 2 bed house. Practically speaking it is a lovely light double bedroom with storage. Its on the expensive side for a 2 bed, but cheaper than a legal 3 bed.

Image attached... this is the only window and there is no wall in the room that could have a window because it's sandwiched between two bedrooms and then attached to another house on the other wall!

Re. fire escape - yes if a house is built nowadays it’s required to have fire escape windows upstairs. But if the house was built before this became a requirement then it doesn’t have to be changed retrospectively. There are lots of houses that don’t meet current building regs and wouldn’t be allowed to be built nowadays.

That looks gorgeous!

You'll need to see building regs signoff for the fire safety of the converion but if that's all in order then crack on!

Our smallest bedroom has a velux and no other window. My daughter chose to move into it at the age of about 6 and lived happily in it until her early 20s. She loved lying in bed and watching the stars without the need to close curtains. She said she felt safe as a child because noone could see in. All other bedrooms have fully opening windows so there are plenty of escape routes.

It looks nice, but can it be opened to let air in

You need to ask for buildings regs sign off. It might have met them at the time but would not now.

But if the house was built before this became a requirement then it doesn’t have to be changed retrospectively

If an attic conversion is done on an older house then the attic rooms must meet the code. Rooms that were already considered inhabitable living spaces before the regulations came in don't have to be retrospectively brought up to code but the pic looks like a relatively recent conversion.

Easy
Just ask tomorrow for the council sign off of the works the vendors have done

That room looks like it would very hot in the summer. Our upstairs is in the roof and gets very hot but we have lots of lower helix windows we leave wide open. It also looks like it could be quite gloomy in a grey day.

But I’d the surprised If that room would have passed building regs by my council

Velux not helix, though helix windows sound interesting!

And certainly from my perspective
It looks a deeply unpleasant bedroom! Fine if Doug facing and a sun today
Otherwise will be very dark and gloomy

South facing!

Sadly with our budget there's always a compromise to be made, and for us a third bedroom that might be too hot in the summer/dark in winter is better than having less space downstairs (or another trade-off). There's only us and an incoming baby so for now it'll do us fine.

I will look at finding the building regs. I have to pay a fee to the estate agent now to mark it as under offer, so I wanted to make sure we're definitely going to be able to proceed. However EA did say this fee would be refunded if any issues are thrown up from their side, so I guess I need to crack on with paying it!

Sadly with our budget there's always a compromise to be made, and for us a third bedroom that might be too hot in the summer/dark in winter is better than having less space downstairs (or another trade-off). There's only us and an incoming baby so for now it'll do us fine.

Could be a lovely dressing room/ spare for guests in that case.

My friend went to see a back-to-back middle terraced house with a windowless second bedroom a few years ago. If you look on Zoopla, it had been listed 4 times over 5 years before it eventually sold, but each listing by 4 different estate agents classed it as a bedroom. House was built before building regulations, probably late Victorian. My friend didn't purchase the house for other reasons, but I wonder if it would have classed as a 1 or 2 bed by a mortgage provider!