Building regs and sale nightmares 😭

[HellsBellsTrudy]

Hi all, just looking for some advice and to vent.

We’re very close to exchange as all enquires etc have been satisfied, our buyer went in to sign their paperwork yesterday but came away not signing after his solicitor flagged the lack of building regulations for our loft conversion.

For context this conversion was done a long time ago, at least more than 10 years and way before we bought it, we didn’t get them from the seller when we bought as they never got them
when they bought etc, never had an issue with the mortgage lender and always able to insure the top room as a bedroom.

As part of the enquiries on our sale we’ve agreed to pay for an indemnity policy to cover for the lack of regs but our buyer has been spooked by what I can only imagine is poor communication. He hasn’t pulled out yet but is being weird and I think he’s a but overwhelmed by it all.

I’m beyond stressed, this is our third buyer and we’ve been in the process since October, we have a little girl and are dying to get out of the area we are in. This house now feels like a bloody poison chalice or whatever the saying is!

I suppose I’m asking for advice on how to best explain this is normal to our buyer, we’ve agreed an indemnity for our onward purchase as the dining room extension has no regs.

Is getting retrospective regs a nightmare? And why wasn’t this an issue when we bought?!

What does the indemnity insurance cover for? Does it cover for bringing the loft up to standard if it fails to get retrospective consent? I can understand the buyer being nervous as he is paying for a loft conversion but it may only be able to be sold as a loft space.

Indemnity policies are worthless
I can understand the buyer being concerned
Can you offer him a bit off the price as an incentive
Get your solicitor to speak to his today and find out what his position is

People get so caught up with things like this, he doesnt need to 'bring it up to current regs' thats not how houses work, he only needs confirmation that the loft is safe to use and for what purpose

What were the checks that were done already?

Whatever you do don’t speak to the Council as then you won’t be able to get Indemnity insurance
When you bought presumably you were told there were no consents and agreed to go ahead anyway

The problem I think is that if it is an issue now when he is buying, it will also be an issue when he comes to sell. I would also be reluctant to purchase a property if there is somerhing like this that makes it more difficult or expensive to sell.

Do you know when it was converted and whether it complied with the regs at the time? Lenders and surveyors appear to be getting more caught up in this, possibly as a result of various fire regs being changed generally. Your solicitor needs to speak to his and establish what the concern is - is it to do with the lender or has his solicitor not explained the purpose of the policy to him?

You can apply to regularise it, but only if it was done after November 1985. As the house has been bought and sold without a regularisation, this would be pretty pointless.

An indemnity is also completely pointless as it potentially covers only legal costs regarding enforcement action and not the costs of rectifying any non compliant works. You are well beyond the statutory enforcement period for building regs, so it’s completely unnecessary.

I’d stick to my guns here, explain the situation and hope they’ll see sense.

We bought our house 27 years ago. Not only have we discovered since that the loft conversion doesn’t have building regs approval, the conservatory doesn’t either, nor does it have planning permission. Our solicitors never flagged this up and we bought it from a couple who’d only owned it a year and their solicitors hadn’t flagged it up either - both works had been done before they’d bought it. Times were different back then. Neither of our respective solicitor’s picked up tree preservation orders for trees on or over growing the garden either. It’s all too late to worry about. We’ve kept the estate agent sales leaflet for when we bought it and when the previous owners bought it as evidence that the loft conversion and conservatory are both at least 30 years old, still standing, no structural damage, etc., which should give comfort to prospective new owners. We even had a proper survey done when we bought it, not the cheap value only survey, and even that didn’t mention the loft nor conservatory not meeting building regulations. We can only assume they were compliant at the time which is ok because building regs aren’t retrospective.

I wouldn't be buying a ?3 bedroom house for the price of a ?4 bed ( or whatever the numbers are).
I would want certainty that the loft met the Building Regs in force at the time it was built.
Just because the previous owners bought it in this way, doesn't make it structurally sound.

As a PP said, have you listed it as a bedroom or storage? If you've listed it as a bedroom then I can understand why buyers are pulling out (and your EA were wrong to do this). I'd also be concerned if it was structurally safe or a safe room to sleep in.

If you’ve only been selling since October, that’s not too bad.

You should have offered this information upfront, whilst you accepted no BR, most people wouldn’t accept that as it’s a risk for when they sell and potential costly problems if it’s been built on the cheap.

Why didn’t the original owners get building regs signed off? Only 10yrs ago it was well known its needed. That’s what I’d be questioning, why I’d be suspicious and why I’d pull out.

Im assuming you’ve priced it as a bedroom? So your buyer can find another property with the same number of bedrooms for the same money with all the legal paperwork in place?

Did you price it and advertise it as an extra bedroom ? If not then I can’t see the issue.

I suppose it depends how potentially dangerous it is and how much it would cost to bring it up to standard.

Building regs are normally there for a reason so which ones does it fail on and why.

Loft conversions can be bodged in pretty badly just by boarding up the loft, without putting in stuff like RSJs and potentially putting the truss in a dangerous state. If someone hasn't put in the proper RSJs and done a diy job on the truss then yes I would not be too happy buying it.

Often people are not in a position to know whether something is dangerous/structually unsound or not. What does the survey report say ?

Their solicitor should have raised this a long time before exchange, that's really poor of them.

I'm sorry you're stressed out and it's happening now.

Saying that, if the conversion was only ten-ish years ago then it should have a building regs final certificate. I'd not buy without that, the indemnity insurance doesn't protect against shoddy or unsafe work. The room can't be counted, or priced, as a bedroom.

If it was a lot longer ago then I'd be happy with a structural engineer saying that it's safe (as an older conversion doesn't need to meet current building regulations).

If you, or anyone, does go down the route of getting retrospective building regs then be aware that compliance will be based on today's regulations, not on what was acceptable when the work was done. Also, if an inspection is made, it will involve exposing any beams or structural elements, it won't be someone having a quick look round.

We have a loft conversion, just finishing it and are waiting on building regs. We didn’t need planning as it is within permitted development.

For building regs though it covers lots of things like:
~roof construction
~insulation - several different layers were specified
~size of floor joists (all our 1960s joists were removed and replaced)
~supporting steels where needed
~fire plaster boarding over the steels
~electrics
~type and conformity of windows inc ~trickle vents
~staircase width, pitch height to handrail, balustrading measurements
~extraction in bathroom
~fire doors in fire door frames
~Wired in smoke alarms in specific locations
~safety barrier on juliet window to specific parameters

All of these stages have either been inspected in person, or had photos sent to building control and a record kept of all the necessary things like extraction and smoke alarms.

If it is not approved for any reason we will redo whatever necessary to achieve it as we would not sell without.

As a purchaser, I would not accept less.

Have you checked your Local Authority planning site to see if the property address has any documentation attached to it? It is a simple search.

Sometimes building regs are done by private companies and the paperwork gets lost.

No idea how you get them but our solicitor managed to for ours.

Tbh if he doesn’t want to buy it it’s his decision. Our house now has had work not signed by building control because of one really stupid issue. I won’t go into it because it’s outing but it’s threshold related and we have a whole host of legit up to reg stuff we can’t get signed off for the sake of a few cms on a threshold. If a future buyer doesn’t want to proceed because of that well it’s their choice.

When you see all that lot it is hardly surprising conversions are as expensive as they are these days.

Current BR are likely to differ to those the conversion was built to comply with at the time. Are the buyers concerned about the structural soundness of it , future saleability(indemnity can be passed on) or possible council enforcement(unlikely after that length of time)? We have an indemnity for ours the room for which was built at the time of house construction but stairs added later(which do have BR approval).

opening windows for potential escape route?

Part of the issue is I don’t think you can apply for retrospective building regs from the time it was done, it would have to meet the current regs which as far as I understand can be really quite different. Ours doesn’t have the required stair head height required for today’s regs so whilst it passed at the time and is documented, it wouldn’t pass now. Unfortunately it means we wouldn’t consider adding an ensuite or doing any works requiring building regs as it would then have to meet current rules.

This is entirely incorrect. A regularisation application is to establish the works meet the standards in place at the time the works were carried out NOT the current regulations.

Again, completely incorrect. It’s to ensure compliance with the regs in force at the time, not the current ones.

Difficulty may be proving when the work was done, as op seems vague.