Building regs/planning downstairs loo

[TwinTiredButStillSmiling]

I recently bought a house with a very large conservatory. The conservatory was built using community/neighbourhood planning laws ? It has an indemnity policy. I have a disabled child and I also have a degenerative condition so I really want to put in a downstairs toilet/possibly bathroom. Because of where the waste pipe is on the back of the house, this would need to go in the conservatory. My concern is that if I contact the council it will open a whole can of worms relating to the very large conservatory. Am I right to be concerned?

I'm not sure what you are concerned about OP.

Can I clarify my understanding of what you say:
> You have recently bought and were concerned about the conservatory - so took/were given an indemnity to cover any legal costs.
> Your concern was and remains that this is bigger than what's allowed within permitted development rights.
> You fear that applying for and achieving building regs will highlight issues that need to be resolved.

Presumably you planned to add a new cloakroom/bathroom before you bought it so had accounted for that in your 'risk assessment'.

What exactly is concerning you now and is a conservatory really the best location for this?

Thank you for replying. This is my first house. To be honest, I don’t know anything about planning permission or building regs because I’ve never needed to until now, which is really why I posted. I’m trying to figure out if I can make the house I’ve got more suited to my needs without spending the little money I have on the paperwork side of things.

Generally speaking you need building regs approval for a new toilet. It requires plumbing into the sewer system, it requires ventilation etc. By not doing the “paperwork” you are not accepting the need for a properly planned space and the regulations that must be adhered to. It’s not paperwork. You do need to do the drawings and get building regs approval. You’ve bought a house with issues and you need to sort it out.

Frankly they don’t care about past building control issues. But whenever you alter anything then building regs need to be adhered to. For example I had my ceilings down which exposed the rafters and building control came around about another issue and said ‘Oo now those aren’t up to code’, but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t doing anything to the roof, so they remained (and frankly as they’d been working fine for 150 years I think they were fit for purpose).
Are you sure that’s the only place fit the toilet? I ran a soil pipe under a bedroom to get out the side of the house. If there’s enough fall for gravity to work it can be in the centre of the house (under the stairs)?
Standard conservatories are usually exempt form building regulations, so was the indemnity first the permission? Adding a toilet will make it part of the main house. And any alterations to the structure of the conservatory is likely to void your indemnity insurance too.
Did your solicitor know you were planning this? Did you inform the surveyor? They could/should have advised you.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner Perhaps I haven’t explained very well - I have no intention of installing a toilet and not getting building regs for it. What I was looking for advice on was whether starting this process was going to mean the existing conservatory would come under scrutiny and end up costing me the money I had hoped to spend on putting in the toilet, thereby making it a non viable project. Perhaps I have been naïve in coming here in the hope of friendly or supportive advice.

@mondaytosunday Thank you for your reply. I wasn’t planning this so unfortunately I didn’t speak to the surveyor or solicitor. I bought the house to give my family some security, not really expecting to survive the treatment I was undergoing at the time but I’m still here so now I’m thinking about how I can improve the space. I think the first thing I need to understand is what an indemnity policy does as I don’t have a clear idea. I’ll be doing some reading up. I spoke to a plumber who said the conservatory was the best place to add a downstairs toilet. There’s no place for it under the stairs. I’m not hell bent on installing a downstairs toilet, and I certainly won’t be doing it without the necessary approvals as a previous poster intimated, I’m just trying to understand if it’s fairly straightforward or whether I’m likely to find an issue with the existing structure. I appreciate your question regarding the indemnity - I really do need to try to understand this.

Frankly OP many older houses won't have all the right paperwork for work that was done decades ago and the regulations change all the time anyway so old work might have passed building control at the time but not be up to date now.

When my solicitor tried getting copies of paperwork for work done for a house I bought the local council said that they did have records of planning application for work in the house and confirmed it in an email but that they did not have any more details/actual paperwork as their current electronic system was not in place at the time as things were done 30 years ago and more.

I’m not sure how you put a loo in a conservatory anyway. Indemnity insurance is pretty much worthless and I guess you don’t like realistic answers @TwinTiredButStillSmiling

Conservatories may or may need pp. They may or may not need building regs. What it probably is not is a good enough construction for a loo/cloakroom. Depends on how flimsy it is but you need to explore costs and former BR approval is probably not relevant. We have just discovered our council deletes them after 15 years. Your big cost will be ensuring you have a suitable build for the loo. Any “paperwork” cost is small by comparison.