Would you pull out of the house buying process?

[shipmunk]

Went to view a house recently, everything looks good however subsequently found out that the house extension that was done about 30 years ago has no certificate of completion in place and sellers are not willing to retrospectively apply for one due to it being a long time ago and they don't remember the details. Sellers have assured that the extension have been approved by building reg but has no certificate to prove it. When questioned further, sellers quoted that maybe there was a certificate but it was sent to the builder who are no longer in business or maybe they lost/ misplaced it or they might not have applied for the certificate 😕

My questions are:

1. If building regulation approval was indeed obtained, how was this provided if not in form of a certificate of completion? I understand that the completion certificate is not a huge thing 30 years ago but surely the approval if obtained must be recorded somewhere following inspection by building reg? How I would go about establishing with building reg team that approvals were in place if there is no certificate and without drawing unnecessary attention to the property is beyond me..

2. If building reg approval was in place (just not in the form of certification of completion), would requesting a certificate now be judged based on current building regulations instead of at time of construction 30 years ago?

3. Giving the benefit of the doubt, if the certificate of completion was indeed obtained 30 years ago but was lost/misplaced over the years, how difficult would it be to request a copy of the certificate from the local council? Would it still require an inspection from the inspector and be judged against current building regulations?

I'm already aware of the option of indemnity insurance coupled with structural survey etc but I am not keen on this route at all. As far as I'm concerned, it's either certificate of completion or walking away.. somehow this wishy washy response about not remembering if there was ever a certificate in place is throwing me off as the situation could be significantly different is there was indeed a certificate but was misplaced rather than not having one in the first place.

However nice the house is, I would walk away. Too many red flags there for my taste.

Don't be a wuss, ask for a discount and go for it. A missing piece of paper shouldn't be a red flag provided works look properly done and the building has passed the test of time.

If this is going to stop you you will never buy an older house. This is what the indemnity covers why are you against it?

My understanding is that after 12 months there can no longer be any enforcement action taken against the home owner to remedy or remove the works (eg by the council).

So your biggest concerns would be the safety of the building work (if it's stood for that long, it's probably fine IMO) and whether the mortgage company would still lend against it.

Personally it wouldn't put me off buying a property if this was the only thing and given how longstanding the works are, it seems like a technicality. But obviously you do need to be comfortable with it.

(I know about this as we got work done on our house, young and naive and our builder didn't tell us building regs were needed. It came up from our buyers' queries. We didn't have the time to get retrospective sign off so offered a discount and they were happy - albeit the works were removing a load bearing wall with RSJ, not a full extension)

You can often search the council website for building regs approval for your postcode but not sure if it goes back 30 years

I was just going to say the same - our new property had work done in 2000 and I've checked our portal and the approval is on there. Probably worth a look!

If it’s mortgageable, I wouldn’t worry about it

I would walk away without the paperwork.

I'd get a survey and if it's structurally sound then I'd be happy to proceed with indemnity insurance which is pretty standard.

It's exactly what indemnity insurance is for.

But if you're not keen then fine, walk away.

If it's otherwise a great property it's only you that's loosing out so 🤷🏼‍♀️

Have bought a house with extension from 1980’s and no certificate (single story, permitted development) and sold it 5 years later (upsizing) - no problem at all. Exactly indemnity + survey route, no one (agents, solicitors, buyers, banks) has flagged it as a problem.

My feeling would be with a 30 year old extension any issues have had time to become apparent and all it really needs is a surveyor to check it over, just as the rest of the house. Building regs 30 years ago would be different to today anyway. If you are really concerned maybe pay for the Level 3 survey.

I definitely wouldn't assume the seller is up to something because they can't remember 30 years ago. I had bits of missing paperwork from the last 10 years that I honestly had no idea whether I'd lost or never had in the first place. If I was your seller, I'd probably barely even remember it was an extension, let alone any details!

@TheOneWithUnagi @r0ck I've checked the local council planning website and whilst the house extension had planning permission approved, there were no records of anything related to the said house extension on the building regulations website. There are records of boiler being changed and double glazed windows put in recently on the building reg website but that's about it. Does this mean that there is no building reg approval for the house extension? The other alternative is to ring the building reg team in case their records doesn't go as far back as 30 years but how would one do this tactfully without drawing attention that will be detrimental for indemnity insurance?

Oh, and your questions about getting from the council, my guess would be that you don't have a hope of the council having records for building regs from 30 years ago. These sort of things probably weren't computerised in 1994 and they are probably stored in a big cardboard box in a warehouse somewhere, if kept at all.

And getting approved now would be pretty impossible because some of what regs is for is to check things like foundations are OK - you get visits from the inspector at various key stages during the build before the next phase goes ahead. To get a retrospective test would involve a level of destructive testing to dig down and inspect these things - make holes to check insulation and that kind of thing. It really wouldn't be worth it.

Ours isn't the planning portal it's a separate building regs portal, have you googled it?

You could ask the council hypothetically where you could find old buildings regs documents without mentioning the property.

My issue is not so much about the indemnity insurance rather the risk of encountering a bungling buyer in future when it's time for me to sell who may inadvertently bring this to the attention of the council and then having to rectify the costly works and also not having the certificate of completion for existing house extension immediately limits any future house extension that require planning permission as the inspectors would come along to inspect the future new extension and find issues with the existing extension. This would be very costly to rectify

Sorry read planning website first time but you said building regs website too, yes that sounds like the right place you are looking if you are seeing windows etc. it is probably just too old in that case but may be worth asking anonymously anyway.

As I said before there is a limit of 12 months to ask you to rectify, ask your solicitor about this if you are unsure. The council won't be asking you to rectify anything based on missing certificates from 30 years ago.

This is literally what indemnity insurance is for.

What makes you think there is anything to rectify? After 30 years, you really need to consider more about how the structure is deteriorating rather than a building regs certificate. Just get the surveyor to look at it like they would any other 30 year old building.

It will be fine. Speak to your solicitor, they will
have encountered this many times. Indemnity insurance will be a small amount of money and it’s really not worth the time to search and make phone calls about. You could spend days trying to track down something that either doesn’t exist or is archived long ago.

@Tupster if the council gets wind of the property not having the right building reg approvals, this would require an inspection visit where the house extension would be assessed against current building regulations instead of the regs 30 years ago, so there is definitely going to be stuff to rectify given how far along the regulations could have been updated over the years ..

Don't ring the building regs team. If you do this and find there isn't a record then it may impact on you being able to get the indemnity insurance. Check with your solicitor

@funfactjanetisme the indemnity insurance only protects against the legal action from the council and does not cover the costs of potentially have to remedy the works. Also the policy will be invalidated the moment a bungling future buyer decides to contact the council about it..then I might be stuck with a house that I can't sell until I cough up the cost to rectify the works to get the certificate of completion or find a cash buyer who will not need the indemnity insurance that is usually dictated by mortgage providers

What's the point of posting on this thread if you won't believe any of the multitude of people who tell you that is never going to happen?

If you want this house, get over this drama, buy the indemnity, get a survey and buy the house. If you want to throw it aside because you refuse to believe anyone who points out that YOU are the flaky buyer here, then fine, drop out of the sale and be done with it, because you are never going to get the answer you want.