Buying a house with an occasional room and no BR

[Porterface84]

Hi. I’ve put an offer on a 3 bed house with an occasional room. The current seller didn’t convert the loft the previous owner did and they haven’t got any building regulations. I can see there’s no smoke alarms in the whole house and the loft doesn’t have a fire door nor the first floor doors. The room is a pretty big space and they are using it as a bedroom (but not marketed as 4 beds)
It has x2 velux on one side and x2 dormers the other side and central heating. Do I need to push this issue further? I really like the house so it’s a tough decision. I have paid for a level 2 survey but I’ve not done this before so not sure what the survey will say.

I’m going to get in contact with the agent and ask them to get the sellers to get this looked into.

can’t thank you all enough for your help I really loved this house but on the back on a divorce I really don’t want an unsafe/unregulated house. The things you’ve all mentioned I wouldn’t have even thought of so thank you all.

The sellers story doesn’t ring true @Porterface84

This issue must have come up when they purchased the property last year.

Be careful, I think they are well aware of the issues, and are just playing dumb.

The dormers look like they are more than a year old, so who knows if they were built properly if nobody even got planning involved at the time.

The sellers should get retrospective plans drawn up and completion certificates etc, but that’s costly. As they only want £15k more than they paid, they are going to walk away losing money. You just have to ask yourself why they would do this?

Id be highly suspicious of what they’ve said so far. It doesn’t sound right at all.

I know it seems suspicious. It’s so annoying to go to all that trouble and not get the regs or anything. Especially when they did for a little porch!

I’ve messaged the seller asking these questions and I’ll see what they say. I don’t think it’s looking good. Using it as a storage room I could probably consider but not if it needed planning permission.

the only way I’ll consider it if they refuse is if they drop the price 20k so I can get it redone properly. I doubt they will but that’s up to them.

The problem at this point is that you don’t know what you’re dealing with - missing structural supports, drainage, electrics - but a top level structural engineers report could tell you a lot, including whether PP and building regs are even likely.

I don’t know your area but that dormer wouldn’t get planning in mine.

That dormer wouldn’t be allowed here either. We are only allowed 1/3 of roof size.

If you contact building control they will give you good advice and look up the history of applications. But a relatively recent ‘illegal’ loft? They will also be likely to issue notice on the current owners.

Buying a property without the relevant building control approvals can be minor (a knock through done decades ago, an old extension…), but a converted loft space rarely is. The addition of dormers and roof lights obviously indicate the owners intended it to be used as habitable space, I’d be very wary of proceeding unless the current vendors sort this out.

I’ve just re read uour original post. I would hang fire on spending any money on surveys etc until you have got the right story from the seller

We are in Sheffield - just a regular street not a conservation area etc.

can I ask the sellers to pay for a structural engineer report? Surely if they want to sell they would do this

The dormers are visible on the 2015 plans for the rear extension that was never done. Must be over 10 years old

Annoyingly I’ve already paid £550. But when they go out they might be able to tell me a bit more

Our loft conversion was a full hip to gable with rear dormer and three front veluxes. Full fixed staircase to match existing. No planning required, all done within permitted development rules.

It might well be fine re planning.

The issue with building regs is that they are usually wanting to attend to see e.g. structural beam sizes or fire proofing material. By the looks of things these things will have been covered so to check you would need to make a hole to look.

Exactly this happened to us. Builder left us in the lurch and the second builder has to tear sections of plastering out so that BR could check. If it isn't the right material then it could be a very costly repair.

Indemnity. No point, won’t help.

I would be cautious of buying this. You will find something you love more!

Not necessarily. Those plans show front elevation and the dormers are on the back.

Google Earth can be useful for finding out when work like this was done, find the house, then look at the historic imagery, dormers and rooflight should be fairly easy to spot. I would be worried that the reason there are no regs is because there isn't any supporting steel under the floor, the ceiling is too low, or the staircase doesn't conform. Firedoors are an easy, albeit expensive, fix.

This is correct - we have a converted attic floor and all the doors for every habitable room throughout the house needed to be replaced with fire doors. LA refused to budge on this and held up the BR for years [we went into lock down just as work finished and discovered incorrect doors used, then couldn’t get anyone in during that period for obvious reasons].

Can’t your conveyancer enquire about the current owners applying for retrospective BR approval? And doing the remedial work to make it BR compliant? If you do not have BR it actually makes any household/building insurances invalid, so if you had a fire, for example, you wouldn’t have any cover or protection - we were told this by our planning office when we queried the expense and hassle of changing the doors (our builders didn’t use the right doors).

You absolutely should not buy a property it without BR regs unless you have a) deducted the costs for the remedial work [it’s not just a case of changing the doors - they need certifying, intumescent strips around the doors, often involves changing the door frames as you are not allowed to cut the doors down, and there will be associated aspects such as requirement for wired smoke/fire alarms in habitable rooms and fitting safety glass in windows on the new stair case etc] and b) you need to NOT be moving anyone into the property until AFTER the remedial work has been completed and BR approved.

We bought a house with a similar issue. The sellers paid for an indemnity policy. We then re-did the loft and ensured it was building regs compliant.

I’ve just asked my builder. Says it would have definitely needed planning permission. So likely to cost a fortune as would need the whole thing doing again

I wouldn’t bother with indemnity because this is a case where you do need to ask the council the lie of the land: 1. PD/PP situation 2. Building regs.

If non-compliant with either/both unless you have the time and funds to rebuild (potentially negotiating the amount off the ask) then you need to walk away.

They may be selling because the above has proved too tricky.

Edit: sorry I missed your latest post - yeah.

Hello, recent loft converter here - ours was done this summer.

We didn’t have a dormer so no need for specific planning on that but we did pay the council fee for inspections and reg approval so we could get a signed off certificate at the end of the build. This was around £900, and the builders then liaised with the council.

the fire regs are really really important here. Every single door in the house that is deemed to be part of the fire escape route needs to be a fire door. Our doors look like normal doors, but they are deemed fire resistant as they are thicker and heavier. (Just look on the Howdens website). Also, we had to have every ceiling on the first floor reinforced with fire board. This gives an extra half an hour in the case of a fire for escape from the top floor. It was an absolute ball ache as it meant every room was impacted with dust and plastering and redecorating. Also, the new staircase had to be fire resistant too.

the inspector came sporadically during the build, plus the builders took numerous pics to document they were doing it properly.

we also have smoke alarms everywhere- these are electronically operated rather than battery, and I’m gobsmacked the vendors don’t have any alarms.

if you love the house, as an absolute minimum try and find a good, reputable builder to come and look at the conversion and tell you what needs to happen to either make it so it passes regs, or what can be done to make it safer to help escape in case of a fire.

what did the current vendors ask / do when they bought the house?

Hi thanks for this - they absolutely did not do any of this because not of the first floor rooms have been touched.

I’ve asked a builder who worked for us before and he thinks 25k to redo. That’s obviously just the structural stuff and build not the finishing aspects of it.

the current sellers are just saying they have absolutely no details whatsoever from the previous owners which is making this really stressful.

I don’t think I would have the 30k plus to sort it out and I don’t know what the insurance implications are if I just literally stored a Christmas tree up there in a loft that should have, but doesn’t have planning permission.

i suppose I’ve already paid £550 for a survey which is non refundable so might as well let them go out and come back with a list.

if I thought divorce with kids was stressful this is a whole added level.

But if you/vendor spent the money to regularise the room, the valuation would increase. We actually have similar, but without dormers. The space was fitted out when house was built and staircase added a year or so later. Staircase has br, with wired smoke alarms, fire doors with closers etc but it is not counted as a habitable room., we use it as storage.

The dormers were likely permitted development if outside of a conservation area. Even if this was not the case, they were completed more than 4 years ago so the council can not take enforcement action against the breach of planning (whilst legislation now refers to 10 years, this development would have been prior to those changes). The building regs is the issue here.

I completely emphasise re the divorce - I’m ten years down the line after a classic MN “Script” situation with three kids and all I can say is my life is awesome now, I have a partner who is everything my old husband wasn’t, but I’ll never forget how hard and painful it was in the thick of it. Hang in there, you’ve got this.

Re the build - we also had loads of steel put in, and so much insulation! We had air con installed because it’s so warm now lol! Good luck, there will be an even better house out there if you decide to walk away, especially in the new year when people list their houses.

Thanks so much everyone I’ve never posted on MN before but you’ve all been amazing.

As I’ve already paid for the survey I’ll see what it says. If it’s not massively bad and they sign off on it I may just have a good think after and see if I can use it as storage.

house prices are sooo high that my options are really limited and I’m desperate to sort out our living situation and away from my husband. Our current house has sold so I thought this would be pretty straightforward- but lots to think about.

on reflection I’ve had few friends with old terraced houses with lofts in as bedrooms which absolutely would have not met regulations eg no doors on at all and it amazes me how many lofts are probably not up to standard.

Just checked google street view. Velux are visible in 2015 but not there in 2012. So that’s reassuring that it’s not a recent conversion as must have been within that 3 year window. At least it means it’s likely structurally sound even if illegal and hasn’t fallen down!