Building regs reversion indemnity insurance

[northlondonmama78]

This is a fairly niche issue but wondering if anyone can help.

We are in the process of buying a house and the Independent Assessor who was due to sign off on some building work went insolvent - this was an issue to do with insurance and a lot of IAs had this. The sellers applied to the council for the building regs application (via a reversion notice) and it is being processed.

However, we have no idea how long this will take and our survey has confirmed the work is to a high standard. Our mortgage broker thinks we might be able to get a bespoke (presumably expensive) indemnity insurance.

So questions:

1. Has anyone got indemnity insurance in this context?
2. Has anyone had any luck with these reversion applications / how long did they take?

Bumping for you but I didn't think you could get an indemnity insurance once the council were involved? Someone more knowledgeable will come along and correct me probably!

Thank you

I think that's definitely the case with an off the shelf policy but it sounded like our broker knew a firm that would be able to do it at a premium... fingers crossed!

Oh interesting, didn't know that was a thing! Hope it all resolves promptly for you!

Have you tried telephoning the council to ask for an idea of how long it will take?

Yes I asked them in vague terms about how long it usually takes (didn't want to name the specific property), unsurprisingly they were very vague about it. Sounded like months though so not the ideal solution if that is genuinely the case.

I heard a BBC radio 4 programme on this exact problem a few weeks ago. It is affecting thousands of people all over the country. It’s not the fault of the people having work done or the councils and many people are stuck in limbo because of it. I’m trying to remember the programme, possibly You and Yours. Maybe try searching it on BBC Sounds. Unfortunately it won’t help you speed things up, or answer the question about indemnity, but it may help understand the wider context. It doesn’t sound like a quick problem to fix as there’s a huge back log of people who need the building regs approved and not enough qualified surveyors to do it at the moment unfortunately.

@northlondonmama78 insurance is cover for something that may or may not happen in the future. You can't get insurance for something that has already happened. It would be like having a car accident then buying insurance and expecting the insurer to pay to fix your car. So in your situation since the seller has already made an application I can't see what you'd be able to insure against.

A lack of building regs indemnity policy is there to cover the costs associated with the local authority taking enforcement action for not having complete sign off in respect of building regs, for an extension or loft conversion.

The chances of which happening is almost certainly zero, but many lenders like to cover themselves.

Most of these policies have a clause that they are invalid if the local authority has been contacted regarding the work within the past 12 months.