Issue with missing building regulations

[DanniG1]

Hi, I'm in the process of selling my house and it's becoming somewhat of a nightmare.

I purchased in August 2019 as a naive first time buyer and now I'm coming to the point of exchange things are getting stressful.

The previous owner added a small extension to the rear of the property, I never received any planning permission or building regs documents for this and because I was so unknowledgable I didn't know that such a thing would be needed as I trusted the solicitors to act thoroughly on my behalf.

Anyway long story short, my buyers solicitor solicitors are now asking for building regulations for the extension and steels installed and my solicitors have told me that if we can't gain this from the previous owner I will have to apply retrospectively and pay for it.

My question is how long roughly do you think that process will take, and how much do you think it will cost?

Could be a couple of months, depends on the council.

Have a look on your council website that will give you a price guide to charges based on size and type of extension.

You could offer indemnity insurance to your buyers - which would cover their costs in applying retrospectively, and also their costs if it was found to breach building regs and had to be rebuilt.

First of all, ask the buyer's solicitor to provide an extract of the local search to confirm whether or not pp (if required - small extensions don't always need this) and building regs comp cert were granted. If revealed by the local search all sorted.

If not, DO NOT approach the council. In the first instance your solicitor should suggest indemnity insurance which is normally acceptable to buyer's and lenders.

Finally, do not panic. I am a property solicitor and this issue crops up on every other transaction.

Thank you for the replies.

My solicitor has said that my local council Building Consultancy got in touch with the previous owner of the property to ask for retrospective buildings regulation approval for the re-build of the kitchen and installation of steels for the kitchen/dining opening and, as far as I'm now being made aware, this was never supplied.

My solicitor has stated that she has emailed the council to ask what happened with this. Does that now invalidate my opportunity to take out indemnity?

Possibly- all correspondence will need to be given to the insurers for them to review/decide. It may be that because a retrospective application had already been made that indemnity insurance would never have been available but I would definitely ask them to cease all communication with the council and to first check if insurance is available or not.

I'd do everything possible to avoid going through retrospective planning/building regs. Ask your solicitor if an indemnity is still an option.

If it's the same solicitor you used when purchasing I'd definitely ask why THEY didn't pursue this at the time!

When was the extension built?
Building regs are not enforceable after 2 years in most cases. But this comes up time and time again when people are selling property.
In these cases an indemnity policy is what you need your solicitor to provide for you.

Retrospective consent will be expensive and could take ages
But I wouldn't accept Indemnity for this
If your purchaser will then that's great

I've spoken with my solicitor and they have said that unfortunately indemnity is not possible in this scenario as the council are already aware that the building regs are missing.

I'm not 100% sure when the extension was built but I've now been given a copy of a letter sent from the council to previous owner in December 2018 which states that they need to apply for building regulations for the work that has been carried out.

Solicitors say my buyers mortgage provider won't lend them the money unless the regs are approved so looks like I will be applying to the council for them to come out and praying that the steel is upto standard 🙏🏻