Buying a house with extension conservatory with no building regs?

[Kittley]

We've been in the process of buying this house for a couple of months and now at the end of the process (all searches back, mortgage approved, Homebuyer survey fine). The final enquiries have been answered regarding a lean to conservatory extension at the back of the house which was arranged for by the current owner. It's an extension of the kitchen so no doors between kitchen and conservatory but only one floor and the sides are bricks. Only the roof and patio doors are glass. The floor area doesn't exceed 30m2 as such they didn't need a planning permission as it's a small extension however our solicitor says they don't have building regs as such they're offering us a "lack of building regs indemnity insurance".

Does anyone have experience in a situation like this? Will this suffice or will we have a big issue selling the house in the future?

Thanks :(

We had a situation when buying our house where the sellers had moved an internal wall years before. At the time this didn't need to go to building regs but the law had subsequently changed and our solicitor said it now needed inspection and a completion certificate. The responsibility for arranging this lay firmly with the seller and it could have held up the sale for months.

Our solicitor costed how much drawing up plans, submitting to council and getting inspected by building control would cost and held this amount back from sale in case the seller defaulted on their obligation. If memory serves me right it was 5k.

Completion went ahead on expected date and some time later retrospective plans were submitted to council by the seller. Building control inspected the new wall and issued completion certificate. Our solicitor then released the 5k to the seller.

Could you do something similar? Make sure the seller applies to building regs for appropriate paperwork otherwise you could have a problem in the future. Sometimes mortgage companies can be sticky on situations like this

Also had similar situation and the conservatory was open to the house the seller took out indemnity insurance. Since moving in we are looking to convert the conservatory with a light solid roof and we will then get building regs with it so it's done properly for the next owner whenever we do sell. But it hadn't caused any issues and didn't hold up our purchase.

@Journey2022

Also had similar situation and the conservatory was open to the house the seller took out indemnity insurance. Since moving in we are looking to convert the conservatory with a light solid roof and we will then get building regs with it so it's done properly for the next owner whenever we do sell. But it hadn't caused any issues and didn't hold up our purchase.

Thank you

Thank you

Pretty common and not an issue. If you have no concerns with the standard it was built to, I'd go ahead with the indemnity.
Going down the retrospective regularisation route as per the above will push the majority of sellers away, especially in a seller's market, as they will be advised by their agent that most buyers would be happy with the indemnity only, with a narrative of you being a 'picky/troublesome buyer'

Very common! We bought one similar, solicitor insisted on an indemnity which was fine and easy, if seemingly a bit pointless to me.
Not a showstopper.

@FurierTransform

Pretty common and not an issue. If you have no concerns with the standard it was built to, I'd go ahead with the indemnity. Going down the retrospective regularisation route as per the above will push the majority of sellers away, especially in a seller's market, as they will be advised by their agent that most buyers would be happy with the indemnity only, with a narrative of you being a 'picky/troublesome buyer'

Thanks, have you had a similar issue before? It's been really stressing me and my DH out today as we're at the very end of the process and been looking for a house for 9 months with many rejections etc. Our surveyor seems happy with the built and it's been there for 7 yrs now. Basically they just had patio doors and window removed from kitchen and added a small extension but still worrying without the building regs.

@Chewbecca

Very common! We bought one similar, solicitor insisted on an indemnity which was fine and easy, if seemingly a bit pointless to me. Not a showstopper.

Thanks, was yours an extension in the back too with no building regs and planning permission required?

A conservatory off the kitchen, no PP, building regs, guarantees or anything. It’s still in situ 15 years later though - I am sitting in it right now!