wall removed- retrospective council regularisation

Hi all

I and my family are buying and end of terrace house. Our solicitor has informed us that the vendor had removed the lounge internal load bearing wall to make the space wider in 2006, but he has never applied for a building regulation consent from the council. The vendor has decided to apply for a retrospective building regularization.

The EA mentioned that last week the inspection from the council went positive and the vendor needs to provide some pictures for the application. I felt that the EA was a bit vague with his answers.

I am wandering why the vendor needs to provide some more pictures to the council? What kind of pictures? Could that the vendor has been asked to rectify the work and the EA is not mentioning it?

Please can anybody help?

My guess is the building inspector will likely need more visual info' before he signs off the work.

Beam end bearings, pad's and steel section being hard to judge by just looking at a plastered in beam.

Yes, as above, hopefully they took pictures as they did the work so can prove they did it correctly. If they didn't they may have to take the boarding off and then re-do it.

What's 'EA' ?

Tony - Estate Agent

As per above, the main crux of the work is what has been put in above the opening and then boarded/plastered over. So there is no way of a visual inspection other then opening up the area to see whats in there unless there are some photos from when the work was done showing the padstones (padstones are kinda big tough bricks that have a high compressive strength to distribute/spread the load from the beam onto a larger area of wall below) and beam and perhaps some structural calculations.

The EA will not have a clue and is just trying to tell you what you want to hear so that you still progress with the sale (they are employed by the vendor and only get paid on completion of sale). Don't take the EA word for anything, if you have any concerns speak to the Building Control Officer as to what they are happy with and what information is lacking.

Hope that helps, if so, next time you see an RNLI money box put in a few quid in from me, thanks.

Archiexeter -thanks - obvious, really but didn't see the wood for the trees!