Load Bearing Wall?

[mgrundy]

Hi all,

I was hoping I might be able to extract some knowledge from the specialists on here! Just about to exchange on a house and we're trying to establish whether a wall knocked down between the kitchen and dining room was load bearing, and hence would've required building regulation approval. I know it's probably difficult to tell purely based on the floor plan (which I have uploaded to my album on here and hope you can see), but if anyone has any thoughts they would be most welcome. At the moment our solicitors are tied up in discussions about missing completion certificates, but neither of them have considered (nor would they have the expertise to do so), that the knocking through of the wall may not have needed approval.

Thanks,

Mark

House Plan

• mgrundy
• 22 Jan 2014
• 1

 

[DevilDamo]

I would hazard a guess the wall is not load bearing. The floor looks to span side to side (i.e. the shortest distance) and that wall follows that line. The way to be 100% sure would be to look at the floorboards upstairs as the jousts would span perpendicular to the boards.

Btw, if a solicitor hasn't picked it up, do you really want to raise it, therefore causing more delays?

 

[mgrundy]

Thanks very much for the response, it pretty much confirmed what we suspected. Also would it be safe to assume that if the lounge spans from one end of the house to the other, without need for a supporting wall, that there's no reason why the opposite side of the house couldn't be structured in the same manner?!

RE the solicitor it's something our solicitor flagged up, not us. She basically asked whether the removal of the wall had been done in accordance with building regs. A satisfactory answer would've been "it wasn't a load bearing wall and so no approval was required", but everyone is now caught up with the 'missing' completion certificate, when in fact there's a good chance it never existed in the first place!

Thanks,

Mark

 

[tony1851]

but everyone is now caught up with the 'missing' completion certificate, when in fact there's a good chance it never existed in the first place!

And there's a good chance everybody's solicitors will be charging handsomely for the time wasted on this nonesense.

 

[mgrundy]

but everyone is now caught up with the 'missing' completion certificate, when in fact there's a good chance it never existed in the first place!

And there's a good chance everybody's solicitors will be charging handsomely for the time wasted on this nonesense.

I don't doubt that, but if there was work on the house that required building regs approval, we'd certainly rather know prior to exchange, so I don't exactly begrudge my solicitor for asking the question!

Any other suggestions / views on whether this would be a load bearing wall would be much appreciated.

 

[tony1851]

views on whether this would be a load bearing wall would be much appreciated.

Then pay an SE, a building inspector, or a surveyor for an opinion, and don't wait while solicitors send bits of paper to each other.