Buliding Regs or Not Building Regs

[bob5buys]

About 2½ years ago we had an internal support wall knocked through and had the local guy from the council building regulations check it out and OK it.
About 4 years ago we had another wall knocked through (not supporting I think) and a velux window fitted. We did not seek clearance from building regulations at the time because we did not realise it may be required.
Although I have no complaints about the quality of the work done, I am a little concerned that if, for example, we were to sell our house these two items may come up as not being cleared by building regs. My questions are:
1. Is seeking building regulation clearance for these two jobs mandatory?
2. Is it possible to get retrospective permission?
3. Am I right to think that if I was to sell the house 7 years after the jobs had been done it would not matter that we had not seeked approval?
Cheers.

 

[Julio]

1) If your house is a listed building, you would probably need permission for all of this work.

If not:

2)If you are knocking out a loadbearing wall, then you will need building reg's & also calc's from a structural engineer to show that your work meets the regs.

3) I don't think that time makes any difference. If a potential buyers surveyor contacted the local authority and found that structural work had been done without building regs, this could cause prob's and a sale could fall through.

Hope this helps

 

[shaggy]

I think I'm right in saying that retrospective permission may be granted but you may need to expose critical areas to confirm job is to regs.
From memory I think the usual question on 'enquiries before contract', from the buyer's solicitor, asks if any work has been done in the last five years which required planning or building control permission. It's not a case of it doesn't matter but means that you can truthfully answer no if work was done outside that time.
The five years is from my experience but I don't know if it is a time limit adopted by all solicitors so perhaps others know different.

 

[P.J.]

When selling a property, I've seen a form that asks for details of all mods done to the property under current ownership and any supporting building regs approval. It didn't give a time limit which makes sense to me cos if structural work is done without building regs and then turns out to be inadequate, it remains so forever.

P.J.