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! 😳