Selling house with an extension

[Symposium]

We are in the early stages of selling our house. It was extended by us a number of years ago. We have all the correct planning permission and building regulations which have been sent to the buyers solicitors. They have now raised an enquiry about proof of permission for the extension from the original developer . House was built in the 1930's!! We had no idea it needed this permission but it's apparently in the small print of the deeds. Anyone else come across this? Would an indemnity be the answer? Apparently the company does still exist but really don't feel like contacting them retrospectively. I'm pretty sure none of our neighbours would have done this when they extended either.

Ime conveyancing solicitors will always try to get you to buy indemnities.
Could you even trace the original builder from 90 years ago? You could ask your solicitor how you could show you’d make enough enquiries to trace the building company but I think they’ll just push an indemnity.

Tell your solicitor this. Most likely they'll relay the info you have given. Worst case scenario, they will ask for an indemnity policy that will cost a hundred quid or so.

Is it part of an estate? Often those kind of clauses are to keep things looking uniform until the estate is finished and sold up (or, if the original developer was selling part of their land, to ensure that they didn't end up with something they didn't like looking at...)

We had that when selling my fathers house after he died. We said we had no idea of whether permission had been sought, or paid for, or had any documentation. The original estate developer wanted £150, we said they needed to prove it hadn't been paid. We heard no more, I suspect the purchaser paid it or obtained an indemnity.

Of course in our situation, we were in no pressure to sell so it was perhaps easier to act nonchalantly!

Thanks all, I feel a bit better now, I'll speak to our solicitor and take it from there.

We had similar….think we paid 40quid for an indemnity….all sorted

Just give them the info you can and be ready that they may ask more questions. (I once answered 'don't know' to that question about whether or not radon monitoring had been done at the time the (Victorian) house was built, because, like, it's not like I was there watching them build the place so how would I know? The solicitor for the buyer had the cheek to ask me to explain my answer! So I looked up when radon was discovered, realised it was after the house was built, and told them that on that basis I was changing my answer to 'no'!)