Looking for advice on building regulations indemnity insurance and sewage issue

[Hunter9989]

The seller of a house we are buying replaced the main roof tiles on a like-for-like basis in 2022. They have full invoices showing that the work was paid for, and there is also a 10-year warranty in place which the seller has confirmed will be transferred to me after completion.
However, there is no Building Control completion certificate or CompetentRoofer paperwork.
We asked the seller to obtain retrospective Building Regulations approval, but instead they have offered a Building Regulations indemnity insurance policy.
Could anyone advise whether accepting the indemnity policy is sufficient and, importantly, what extent of protection it provides to me as the new owner? My main concern is that if the council contacts me in the future or takes enforcement action regarding the roof, I don’t want to be left with significant costs, disruption or the hassle of dealing with the issue myself.
Would you accept the indemnity policy in this situation, or would you insist that the seller obtains retrospective Building Regulations approval before completion?
There is also another issue. The property has an extension which appears to date back to around 1995. There is a sewage/drainage pipe running through the extension, and the seller does not have any information about it as the extension was already there when they purchased the property.
Can I ask the seller to investigate this and, if necessary, divert the sewage/drainage pipe outside the property before completion? Would this be a reasonable request, or would it normally be something the buyer is expected to deal with?
Any advice from people who have dealt with similar issues would be appreciated.

Sewer/drainage is the responsibility of the owner and the can’t legally sell to you if it’s not meeting current standards. It is on them to prove it is. Your solicitor should manage this for you.

re indemnity: my understanding is that these cover legal costs only and not any rectification costs, so most of the time really not worth the metaphorical paper they are written on.

you are on the front foot here, the seller will face the same issues if you pull out and both of these are not insignificant.

Presumably you have a solicitor who can advise on this?

If it’s a sewer pipe that belongs to the water company the seller can ask them to CCTV the pipe and approve its current state? Or is the manhole cover also inside the extension?!

I’m not sure they’d be able to divert the pipe outside of the extension as they may have to remove the extension?

An indemnity policy is not worth the paper is written on and is largely pointless.

It is perfectly straightforward (and fast) to regularise unauthorised roofing work such as this via Building Control. This is what I would be asking the vendor to do.

The potential issue for them is that re-roofing constitutes the ‘renovation of a thermal element’ and would more than likely have triggered a requirement to upgrade the insulation. The issue isn’t simply whether the roof tiles were replaced like-for-like.

Having said all of that, the likelihood of Building Control taking any legal action is pretty much zero.

Re the drainage. No, it’s reasonable to expect the seller to simply dig up and divert a drain that’s been under a 30-year-old extension, particularly where the extension predates their ownership. Extensions are built over drains all the time. Is it a private drain or an adopted one? If it’s a public sewer, there should have been a build over agreement. But you’re really wasting your time pursuing something that predates the current owners.

So should I asked them for building regulation and sewage below is the solicitor response

—
The results of my enquiries have confirmed that foul drainage and surface water from the property
drains into sewers maintainable at public expense.
The plans held by the Water Authority show a private sewer within the boundary of the property.
Therefore, access may be required at any time by the Water Authority to carry out works to their
property. This may also prohibit any extensions you wish to build at the property if it is to be built
over the sewer.
The connections from the property to the main drains are of course private and you will be
responsible for maintenance.
The Water supply for the property is connected to the mains water supply.

I just re-read my post. I meant it’s NOT reasonable.

Was there planning permission and building regs on this extension from 1995? The normal approach is to reroute sewage piping as part of an extension.

Your solicitor’s comments are unclear and misleading. Do they know the difference between a drain and a sewer?

If it is a private sewer, ie unadopted, then the sewerage undertaker would not be maintaining it, so the statement that they may require access ‘to carry out works to their property’ does not follow. Their property would be a public sewer, not a private one. And the drain or sewer has already been built over, so that point is moot.

Let me ask for building regulation instead going with indeminity

Is EICR and gas safety is mandatory to have? Seller has 10+ year old record for that.
when I checked with solicitor then they said it’s not mandatory.