Retrospective Building Regs on Old Loft Conversion

[SpaceInvader321]

Has anyone ever gone through the process of getting building regs on an old loft conversion? This is regarding a 1900 Victorian property. What does it involve and how much might it cost?

The conversion was done a few owners ago in the late 1990s and there's no documentation.

We're wondering if it's worth doing this when we're ready to sell, or if we just offer an indemnity policy as was offered to us.

(FTR we've had builders take a cursory look at the loft and there are steel beams and fire doors in place, etc, so it seems to have been done correctly...)

Have you ever collapsed a chain? How did it feel? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/4672501-have-you-ever-collapsed-a-chain-how-did-it-feel

Read this as this OP may need to do the same

I've not done it but I'd say it's almost certainly not worth doing unless the loft as it currently is is defective/unusable in some way so needs work anyway.

Some Councils simply won't do retrospective permission for anything over ten years old. Or maybe it is just my council. Either way, don't assume you can get a certificate!

My understanding is that if you request retrospective building regs from the local authority then by notifying them you may then not be able to purchase an indemnity insurance policy. The advice I had was not to approach them! An indemnity is a cheaper and faster option so you can keep your options open by not doing anything.

Also the thread linked to above ("have you ever collapsed a chain ") has some possibly pertinent comments about time limits that local authorities are constrained by, and I wonder if when your conversion work was done means they cannot take action now anyway.

An indemnity has absolutely no purpose in such a situation.

The only risk the policy covers is the possibility of the local authority taking action for lack of approval. Chances of that happening are somewhere around zero.

Check first with the council if there is any record of any inspections taking place when the work was carried out. It may have been partially inspected, but missed the final inspection, or only have a small number of tasks to resolve in order to get signed off. Remember, it would only need to comply with regs in place at the time, not brought up to todays standards.

When you think about the percentage of buildings with old extensions, most of them won’t have regs, getting a council to do it retrospectively isn’t going to happen either. If this was such an issue then a massive amount of properties would never change hands.

Get it checked by a structural engineer & proceed if he’s happy with it. Idemnity is a waste of money.

My understanding is that if you request retrospective building regs from the local authority then by notifying them you may then not be able to purchase an indemnity insurance policy

In a way that's correct, but an indemnity policy isn't any benefit to anybody in a scenario like this. You're covering a risk of something that is simply never going to happen.