Buying a house without building regulations completion certificate

27 replies

natkasz · 06/08/2022 17:36

Hi. would like some advice/personal experiences on the below please.

We're in the process of buying a house. Our buyers are FTBs and have been patiently waiting since March. We found our dream house in March too but it was sold within hours. It came back on the market a few weeks later, we made an offer and it was accepted. The vendor has been in touch regularly and even allowed us to view again to take some measurements.

We arranged a full structural survey but it seems now that it is very basic. The
surveyor phoned me after the inspection to say everything had been done by the book. The house has a wraparound extension (two story to the side with integral garage and one story in the back).

Fast forward 4 months and the searches revealed that whilst planning permission was granted, the vendor never asked for a building regs certificate. We have asked him to apply a regularisation certificate. The extension was built in 2004 and the house was marketed
as a 4-bed. We haven't heard since.

Our initial thought process was to pull out if no agreement was made in relation to regularisation due to the size of the extension (including the garage) but having checked the recent mortgage rates, if we were to pull out we would definitely lose our current rate and the new one (as of today) would be 1.58% higher 😳 The mortgage offer is valid until November.

If we stay in our current house, we will have to remortgage and would be on a crazy rate too notwithstanding that we have more than 60% equity in the current property.

If we argue a reduction in price, the lender will have to issue a new offer which most likely will be based on the current rates and would still pay more per month than what our current mortgage offer is.

We were originally adamant that we would pull out but now we're thinking it's probably not the best idea. Our Solicitor has advised against accepting Indemnity insurance given the age of the extension and the fact that any breach of regs is no longer enforceable.

I've heard stories about building insurance being invalidated if they find out that the build was never deemed compliant with the regs. What I'm more concerned about though is that we won't be able to make any alterations to the existing extension (we would like to extend it further by 2m) as the original work was never signed off and we would have to apply for regularisation ourselves before we apply for planning permission.

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks

OP posts:

Sandrine1982 · 07/11/2023 21:12

Threaten to pull out - ask the vendor to get a retrospective certificate.

We did this and our vendors somehow managed to magically get one!! It took some time but it was worth it.

It's just a piece of paper, but I understand your stress. However, if a surveyor thinks the house is in good condition, that is a VERY good sign. Surveyors (especially the more expensive structural surveyors) are usually very negative. Ours was. We got a 50 page report of doom and gloom, and we still bought the house...

boygirlmom · 04/03/2024 20:53

BoyMumma13 · 07/08/2022 07:31

It's rubbish when you find out work wasn't done with the right certificates. Even if they wanted to pursue it, the vendor would be unlikely to get a regularisation certificate as even it did meet standards in 2004, it is unlikely to meet modern standards as building regs are constantly changing.

Some suggestions:

-Did the vendor do the work and if so do they have any plans for the work (so you could see what was done/ depth of foundations)? You could ask via the agents in the first instance if the sols are slow.

Highlight to your surveyor that buildings regs wasn't obtained (although planning was) and whether they have any concerns about the condition of the property in view of this. Ask if they think it affects the value of the property.

Double check with your lender if you hypothetically negotiated a price reduction (don't say why), would that mean they switch you to a new product or whether a new mortgage offer would be issued with your current product. Quite often it's based on your loan to value so if you're still within the threshold, you might be able to keep the product you're on.

-Depending on how helpful your local Council is, you could try speaking to the building control and ask what their policy is if you applied to do work to existing work that didn't have building regs in 2004 (i.e would you need to bring the old work up to code). Do NOT disclose the property address, just speak hypothetically or just say the general area the property is in.

-You would be wise to read the small print of any buildings insurance and whether the work in 2004 would invalidate it. The safest (but also will increase premiums) way to to proceed would be to speak to a buildings insurance company and get a bespoke quote. Please bear in mind that a legal indemnity policy does not provide cover for inadequate buildings insurance.

Hope this helps!

Yes our surveyor told us we can't get indemnity insurance if we have already told the council? How do the insurer know if we have told the council. I don't want to do anything dodgy but curious to know how this is checked.

I didn't realise not to disclose anything... my dad is remortgaging and I called the council to ask if there was a building application and I disclosed the address. They said there wasn't even though they could see 7 site inspections had been completed including gas and electrics.

It's just a single story extension of 25sqm done 10 years ago.

So should we tell our conveyancer we disclosed and move ahead with regularisation certificate application ...

In hindsight could we have got indemnity insurance and then apply for building regs?

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