Workaround for building regularisation certificate - purchasing a property

[egg2410]

I will try to keep this brief, we are looking to buy a property which has recently had the roof rebuilt/repaired (in early 2024) the sellers had not obtained the correct local council permissions for this it seems which was raised during our enquiries at the very end (we were due to complete this week which is no longer looking possible/likely). We were planning to take out indemnity insurance to workaround this however found out today that the sellers have informed the council of the situation therefore null and voiding any ability to carry on with the indemnity insurance approach, as explained to us by our solicitor. Meaning it would seem that our only option is to wait for the sellers to approach the council for a building regularisation certificate meaning we could delay completion by a minimum 5 weeks (according to what I can google) we are keen to complete as soon as possible and were due to do so until this happened, due to several factors but predominantly we're worried about the increased stamp duty coming into affect from April which would effectively double what we would be paying now. The house needs works carrying out to it before it's fit for purpose so our budget is already tight with these factored in, so paying double for stamp duty is less than ideal. Does anyone have any experience of a similar situation and is there a workaround? We were told the mortgage offer would be rescinded without either indemnity insurance or the building regularisation cert, but is there a way to negotiate with them that we will promise to complete any works/obtaining the cert ourselves?

You have no choice but to wait or walk away.

I imagine it varies greatly between councils but we had to apply for retrospective building regs on an internal wall we knocked down (was load bearing). It only took 2 weeks to sort but we managed to get the mobile number of the senior surveyor at the council who pretty much sorted it for us so we didn’t have to go through their dreadful planning portal.

Ours was raised right at the start of the process though, we'd have been more worried had it been raised down the line.

You don't really have much choice than to pull out or wait.

If the roof isn't compliant then you could end up with total rebuild costs if you go ahead with the purchase before the certificate is issued. Don't take on someone else's problem! If it looks like it's going to take longer than to the end of March then you could negotiate that the vendor covers the extra stamp duty, seeing as they hid this problem until near the end of the conveyancing process.

Surely they can just apply for retrospective building control?
We had a scenario where our builder was supposed to deal with all the building control for our extension and due to various reasons didn’t, however we just did it retrospectively.
It’s not that long of a process. Maybe 1/2 months.

Took me under 2 weeks to get the building control sign off I forgot about (we had the visits just not the final paperwork. I would call building control and see what time frame it is, it varies depending on just what the irregularities are

Thanks all appreciate the responses! We are aware that the likely only option at this stage is to walk away or wait it out, I was just wondering if anyone had any lived experience/solicitor knowledge of an alternative workaround in this scenario. For further context we have a guarantee for the work carried out, I have spoken to the roofer who did it but they can't remember the exact project and seemed to think it didn't require any regs (I think they are definitely not correct here) we also learned yesterday that whilst the council are now aware of the works requiring regularisation they haven't been instructed yet to start the process of granting the cert, our local council building application portal also has a huge banner at the top stating they are snowed under and progress will be slow so less than ideal! We are currently living at my parents house as we packed up our lives to move on Friday and we're expecting a baby at the end of the month so all in all a stressful time, albeit of our own design, we're just frustrated that this issue wasn't flagged sooner in the process by either ours or the seller's conveyancers.

I'm very surprised that this wasn't flagged up as an issue earlier.

My daughter is in a similar position - there appears to be no building regs approval for a supporting beam having been moved from what was attic and is now a bedroom.

In this case the surveyor noted the removal of the beam and the solicitor flagged up that there didn't appear to be building regs approval so we weee mad sod the issue reasonably early.

Apparently retrospective approval will not be enough in this case and the sellers will probably have to get a structural engineer in. We are waiting to hear if they are doing that. Without it my daughter will have to pull out as the lender will withdraw the mortgage offer.

Daughter is a first time buyer and is also keen to complete before the end of March because if she does she will not have to pay any stamp duty.

I'd want to find out for certain if building regs were definitely needed for the work done. The roofer not thinking that they were needed could indicate they didn't have the required inspections done during the work, which would be more problematic that just missing the final inspection and sign off.

If you planned to complete on Friday, presumably that means you’ve exchanged contracts, so are you able to walk away?