Building Control sign-off

[zbx777]

I'm in the process of buying a relatively new house (completed 2019). It's an individual house, not on an estate, and not built by a major builder.

There's a "Completion Certificate" from the Building Control Department of the local county council which states that "Building Regulations have been satisfied". It lacks any detail on what specific checks were made in order to achieve this sign-off. And it seems that the application for the approval is also very general with no specific requests, but this is apparently normal.

However, my solicitor says that "usually there are additional certificates from individual installers for specialist items (e.g. winds, electrics, solar panels, oil tanks etc)", but there's no evidence of these nor are they mentioned in the completion certificate. All we have is the assurance from the seller (via their solicitor) that all these were signed off as part of the completion certificate. Would you expect individual certificates for these items in the case of a new(ish) build?

Apparently the council won't provide any additional information on what was checked.

Is this a problem we should worry about as our solicitor seems to think, or is the completion certificate sufficient evidence of compliance with building regulations?

I'm in the same boat. I want the details of what exactly was signed off. I'm pushing back. Sellers are being slow and obtuse.

When we had building control sign off on our extension they insisted on seeing things like the Gas Safe certificate, part P certificate etc. before they would sign off on the completion. However, those certs were issued to us, so I would expect the current owner of the property you wish to purchase to have them available.

We self built our home, completed three years ago. It's true that you don't get that building control completion certificate without going through a very involved process, including inspections at key points of construction and supplying certificates for all manner of things including electrical safety, gas safety, roof guarantees, energy efficiency, water usage and air tightness testing, windows certification etc etc. We were also required to get an NHBC ( or similar body) 10 year guarantee which your seller should definitely be able to supply as it will still be in force. We have copies of all this certification and could supply no problem.

Are your sellers perhaps not the original owners of the house and this is why they don't have the documentation? Not ideal but not necessarily sinister. I would be insisting on getting the NHBC guarantee though as I wouldn't want to buy a new house without one.

Thanks. The house has a warranty (not NHBC but from "BuildWarranty" aka BW) and we have had a level 3 survey which has uncovered zero issues. It's really just a question of dotting "I"s and crossing "t"s. The completion certificate from the local authority should be sufficient but we're just being cautious.