Wrong reason given for no buildings regs...

[YouveGotAFastCar]

We bought a house with a converted attic room in '21. On the sellers paperwork, and in an email to our solicitors, the sellers stressed that it didn't have building regs as it requires a fire door, and that he hadn't managed to source one during Covid.

It's become apparent that the real reason may well have been that it doesn't have the height clearance, and therefore is build onto ceiling beams rather than floor beams. This was not picked up in our survey.

I'm woefully poor on housing and am trying to learn quickly, when we bought it was my first ever purchase and I was heavily pregnant, and maybe should have pushed him to sort the door. But if it turns out that he lied to us, would we be able to do anything now?

We'd counted on being able to get the room "official", and make it into a dormer. Without that ability, the house isn't big enough. There's no other extension options and it seems that not only can we not get the dormer, we can't use the upstairs room at all as it's not built correctly.

I absolutely appreciate that this might be "buyer beware". I'm not sure how that works in property, or when you have a survey.

Please be gentle! 😳

so the seller provided zero evidence of what he was saying?

survey sounds a bit shit

how has it become “apparent”?

I think there is a 6 year statute, and a quick google brought this up which might be a starting point for you. Bought a house & found problems not disclosed? What to do (getagent.co.uk) I hope you get some answers though.

OP

Was any survey carried out - if by the lender, there only interest is they can get their money back

Did you pay for a full survey??

Hopefully you would have been sold an indemnity policy for this situation? Can you claim against that ti have the building bought up to regs?

Without building regs you should’ve been advised to take out indemnity insurance.

My old house had no regs on the attic conversion, the person I bought it from claimed it was already done (not by them), I then sold it on, again with indemnity insurance.

In reality you can use the room day to day however you like, when I sold I could only call the attic room an ‘occasional room’ not an additional bedroom, but if I’d wanted to use it as a bedroom I’d have just done so.

Indemnity only covers the risk of building control taking enforcement action. They don't cover the risk that the work is not up to spec/safe etc.

Generally a complete waste of time as building control enforcement for this sort of work is almost non existent.

Without building regs you should’ve been advised to take out indemnity insurance

Which really isn't going to make any difference to anybody in this sitaution.

Only covers costs associated with the council taking enforcement action, the chances of that happening are precisely zero.

to buy a property that you will only be able to realistically live in if you use a particular part of the house, and then just accept the seller’s word is odd.

But the survey also didn’t pick up

so i’m wondering how it’s now become apparent?

Unless you had a structural survey or specifically asked that it be checked, and feel falsely reassured, I'm afraid it is down to you, sorry.

I could be wrong, but the way I'm reading this is that the loft conversion room appears to have the correct height clearance as the floor was not adequately reinforced (which would cause the overall height of the room to reduce). It is only more recently that it has become evident appropriate floor reinforcement does not exist.

A survey wouldn't necessarily have spotted this, as they're not going to lift carpets, or expose what's under floor boards. The surveyor will have almost certainly included a line along the lines of: "ensure your legal advisors confirm appropriate building regulation approval was obtained for the conversion of the loft to habitable space."

t it doesn't have the height clearance

you simply need to know the height clearance and then compare with min required

My DSD bought a house with no regs for the loft conversion, but as it wasn’t sold as a bedroom (even though it was obviously being used as one) there was nothing she could do. (ie. The house was marketed as a three bed, not a four bed). She ended up getting it redone with new joists, and got building regs for it.

I think Vendor was basically saying, they decided to go ahead with it whatever and sounds like you took that at face value.

Only come back you might have is he you had a full survey and had particularly pointed out anything you were concerned about, but obviously there are certain things surveyors/structural engineers can't get access to.

Unfortunately not, in this case. It looks and measures fine, but it's been built onto the ceiling beams, rather than having floor beams laid. This means it's not safe to bear weight, but having the correct beams fitted means there will not be the height clearance required for the room.

We could likely get planning permission, but next door would have to raise her roof too, and that's very unlikely to be possible (or wanted by her, to be honest).

We did have a full survey and asked him to be thorough in the attic room, and he did spend a lot of time up there inside the eaves looking at the set up, but didn't raise any flags.

It sounds like it's just a case of buyer beware, though. I'm not too sure what we'll do. Lesson learned! Thanks all.

You could have the ceilings on the floor below lowered to give you space to put supporting beams in?

You could lower the ceiling height down stairs something we looked at.

In that case the surveyor missed something fairly basic and fairly massive.

Your solicitor was also remiss as you don’t need a fire door for attic conversions so that couldn’t have been the reason for no building reg approval. That was obvious bollocks.

They could have requested the seller get retrospective building reg approval as a condition of purchase, which would have caused a massive delay, but at least you could have pulled out.

Could they put extra support under the floor, so in the ceiling of the room below?

This is on your solicitor they should have checked the right regulations where in place. The surveyor wouldn’t have known without ripping the floor out to see how it had been built.

Your solicitor was also remiss as you don’t need a fire door for attic conversions so that couldn’t have been the reason for no building reg approval. That was obvious bollocks

I think to say it's obvious bollocks is something of an exaggeration. It's a grey area at best, and I think recent regulations have become a little more stringent.

Its your surveyor that you need to talk to as its his job the notice this. In my house the ceilings and floors are on the same joists. How have you noticed this. I dont really think it matters much what he told you the reason was . The fact is he told you it was unregulated

My bad, it must have come in since I last did a loft.

However, the point stands that the solicitor should never have let them buy it without building reg approval.