Building regs advice

[RobJames]

Hi

New to the forum. Last year I bought a 1890's ish terraced house. The house came with a massive loft that had been converted to a decent (but aged) standard. The solicitor picked up that there were no building regs for the loft, however, the house wasn't being sold as the loft being a room, just storage space. Being a naive first-time buyer I didn't really know much about building regs etc and went ahead with the purchase.

Now the house is pretty small, and I would really like that room to be classed as a habitable room to add the extra space but also, I'll be looking to sell next year so not entirely sure if it would be worth properly converting. The main issue is that I don't know when the conversion was done, as in, I don't know if it was pre-1984 building regs or after. My investigations make me think it was probably started pre-1984, however added to, or improved in the 90's. I've had a look at the plaster under the wood chip which is the old horse hair plaster covered with wood chip. But the roof has been insulated and covered with plasterboard (old) plastered over and two Velux windows have been added which are 1992 models. The floor joists are original and are 5inch by 2 1/2 inch joists. There is an enclosed staircase (60-degree pitch) leading up to the loft, radiators, power and TV ariel point.

What do you think I should do, leave it and sell it as loft space, or get someone in to have a look. My knowledge of loft conversions is limited, but I understand it could potentially be signed off according to when it was converted retrospectively, but then again, I dont know when it was converted.

Thanks

 

[tony1851]

Building Control would not consider issuing a Regularization Certificate unless you could show it was converted after November 1985, and it would have to be shown to comply with the regs in force at the date of conversion.
But be warned that it can prove expensive; the fee would be hefty (in my area it would be around £1k), and you would be required to open up some of the work so that they could check compliance.
This may lead to further expense, such as the need to provide structural calculations. They would almost certainly rule that your stairs were dangerous, and altering those would undoubtedly be expensive. And there could be fire-safety issues to be addressed.
As it is at the moment, it is extremely unlikely that they would take enforcement action, so if you can live with it, why bother with the rigmarole?

 

[garyo]

Stay quiet, sell it as you would have done anyway, play dumb during conveyancing and pay the £300 for the indemnity policy when the buyers solicitor eventually asks for it.