Seller refusing to get retrospective planning permission

[Goldi321]

Hi, I'm buying a house that has had a kitchen/dining room knocked through with removal of load bearing wall and insertion of RSJ within the last few years. The seller has not got a completion certificate for building regs and is making me out to be the unreasonable one by insisting on it.

The sale has been dragging on for 6 months now- back when we offered the market was very different and I had to put in a way above asking price offer to secure the house. Obviously, the market has now changed and I'm not sure there is the same level of interest as there was back in the summer when the property market was on fire.

The seller and their estate agents and solicitors are arguing that it is not needed they seem to think that because they have planning permission they don't need building regs. My reading and advice from surveyor is that it is.

I'm thinking about pulling out. Just wondering if anyone can offer advice? Would you do the same? Everyone is making me out to be very unreasonable for insisting on this paperwork that will cause me a headache when I don't have it in many years when I try to sell.

The seller has, of course, told me I am welcome to pay for a structural engineer to go in to inspect the work but I don't see why I should have to do this.

Yes pull out, a load bearing wall needs to be dealt which properly. If not, it could fall on your loved ones! I can't believe they're trivialising such a massive risk!!

Hello, I’m a Conveyancer. When an internal load-bearing wall, you would require Building Regulations. I have not come across the requirement for Planning Permission, however. In any event, it is not uncommon for works to be carried out to a Property where Building Regulations Consent had not been obtained. As a Conveyancer, we are not in a position to advise as to what to do, however, I do usually suggest to my clients to ensure that they are at the very least satisfied as to the state and condition of the works I.e. it is safe etc. Whilst indemnity insurance is a practical solution, if you are not comfortable with the fact that the appropriate Consent not being held, whether or not others accept Indemnity Insurance is not your problem. Your concern is what makes you comfortable. Perhaps an option to consider is also how long ago the works were carried out. Say it was 20 years ago, that may sway your position as to something done 6 months ago for example. I hope that this is helpful. I have since noted that the ability to obtain Indemnity Insurance had been invalided in this particular case, but hopefully this assists for yourself or others in the future. Many thanks and good luck.

Goodness me do not take advice from EA they do not work for you and do not have your best interests at heart, they are salesmen and women and are after commision.

Hang on. Your surveyor has given the answer. You know the answer. Your solicitor is deferring to the surveyor.

Why are you still buying the house?

Stop blaming everyone else.

You're right, but sometimes you need to be very clear to make the message really sink in.
By the way, it wasn't just a figure of speach. About 10 years ago, a friend of mine was renting a room in a house where the third floor just cracked and those on the second floor had a very lucky escape. All caused by renovation / adaptation done by cowboy builders.

Sounds so dodgy. Pull out!

If they don’t have photos of the work taking place, I would not take a risk.
They could have got the Cert by now with only a few mins work to expose the padstones and the end of the beam. It’s just a case of drilling a few holes.

Dodgy AF

@AXD1999 thank you for your advice.

Ultimatum has been given. DH is willing to give them the chance to rectify it, I’ve wanted to pull out for weeks now. We do have to move and are on a deadline but it looks like we will miss that now but we will manage. I’d rather not buy a potentially unsafe house and a headache for the future even if it is safe.

Thank you to everyone for your responses, it really has helped to see that I am not being unreasonable and has been useful to discuss how the market has changed.

The mention of planning permission was because other work was undertaken at the property which did require planning consent, and curiously that part does have building control sign-off.

I am surprised you feel that as a conveyancer that you are not able to advise what to do in this situation. I would expect a property solicitor to be advising their client that it would be extremely unwise to proceed with the purchase of a property where the surveyor has identified the removal of a load bearing wall which does not have the appropriate building regs sign-off. Furthermore, it is likely to affect the position of a lender who may be providing a mortgage for the property.

In this case indemnity insurance is not possible as the council are aware of the breach. However, even if that were not the case is it really a practical solution? The only thing the policy covers you against is the cost of dealing with enforcement action taken by the local authority. Chances of which happening sit somewhere around zero. It does not cover the expense of rectifying sub-standard building work. As such, imho, it's a cop out solution and a complete waste of everyone's time and money.

Hello, I hope that you are well this evening.

Thank you for your message and I note your comments.

As a Conveyancer, we are not suitably qualified to advise on surveying matters. We have identified the issue, however as noted above, set out the risks associated with not holding the appropriate Building Regulations Consent and also stated that you should ensure that you are at the very least satisfied as to the state and conditions of the work done and in the case of this load bearing wall, that it is in fact structurally safe. The Surveyors comments should be taken into account on this. As to the Lender’s position, all you can do is advise if necessary that xyz has been done, it was done at this time, and no consents are held. As to Indemnity Insurance being a practical solution, often is the case that the Buyers still want to proceed and they are aware of the risks and they accept them. The policy will not deal with defects or implications as to poor craftsmanship, but if the Buyer and Lender still want to go ahead, then that is on them and the Policy will for allow for this to go ahead, whether or not it physically deals with the issue itself is a different matter.

I note that OP has reservations and I think they should hold true to this. If you are not willing to take the risk then I’m glad to hear that you are taking the issue seriously and I hope that a resolution is agreed.

We had a similar problem. The seller was very reasonable though (despite having done a very cheap botch job on their extension and loft conversion.. never even sought planning permission and BR completion certificate). We threatened to pull out and they agreed to get a retrospective BR cert. We also managed to get a significant price reduction based on a pretty bad structural survey.

long story short, definitely insist on the completion certificate!! It's a buyers' market at the moment ...

Indemnity will only help if It fails or is ordered to be removed.
pit doesn’t give her piece of mind that the bloody wall won’t fall down, crack or whatever…

Yep, if you read the full thread you’ll see that I’ve taken this on board now.

I would walk away. They are being so stubborn it would make me suspicious they know something isn’t right. Also, it’s a very different market now, I wouldn’t be happy with having offered over asking price in this situation anyway.

The very short answer is that there's a problem. At the moment it's the vendor's problem, if you complete the purchase, it'll be yours. Don't buy someone else's problem.

We are cash buyers using funds from sale of our current property so no mortgage.

I expect this is why they think they can put pressure on. I'd walk at this stage. (If they need to sell they might even come grovelling back later offering to rectify it all properly but don't bank on it.)

@Goldi321
DH is a structural engineer and we have some pretty long beams in this house. One of the issues that must be considered when a beam supports a load bearing wall, isn’t just the size of the beam, it’s how it is embedded in the wells at either end. This is because it can become unstable in a fire if it is not fully embedded. So do not accept insurance.

It makes little difference if the beam was put in yesterday or 10 years ago. The beam may well be the right size, but if it’s built incorrectly 10 years ago, or yesterday, it’s still wrong. A conveyancer has no idea about structural design! What you need to understand as well is that the beam distributes the load from the upper floor, down the walls and into the foundations. That’s how buildings are supported. A beam without sufficient weight distribution to the walls/foundations is useless. It’s literally just sitting there disconnected! So BR need to be certain It’s the right size and built safely by seeing working drawings and calcs.

I had a thread on here last month when we pulled out of a purchase owing to lack of building regs. We were also being told we were stupid by the agents and the sellers wouldn’t engage at all with the issue as the agents had told them we were being ridiculous. We collapsed a chain very late in the day and I felt awful about that but have no regret.

The last house we bought had no buildings regs on the extension. Stupidly we just got the pointless indemnity. We ended up spending six figures to demolish it and rebuild, after finding out it was supporting a chimney breast and was about to collapse. It was lethal. The cost broke us for years. So I am so pleased you’re not going to let this drop.

What happened OP?