Completion Certificate...help?

[mandyp]

Hi

We moved into our house in April last year, the house had an extension when we moved in and plans for a loft conversion. Having looked through all the paperwork that came with the plans, we find that there is no completion certificate for the extension. The council did a 'summary inspection' of the work and said 'work in general appears to have been in accordance with the drawings', however since work was carried out prior to a Building Warrant being issued they can't issue a Completion Certificate.

This has sent us into a blind panic, does it invalidate house insurance and also, does it mean we can't sell our house? These papers were in the hands of our solicitor before we got them, should they not have informed us of this?

When we look at the paperwork, the building warrant was 4.11.02, works seem to have started in March 03, so we can't see why this has been refused.

It's Saturday and I can't phone the planning dept till Monday, just wondered if anyone had any idea what this means....and what we can do about it (if anything!)

Thanks

Mandy
PS Hope I've posted in the right place!

 

[breezer]

11, 11a

 

[ace]

Breezer,

You are the most unhelpful k*** I ever came accross.

You should get a life

 

[Thermo]

Mandy,
breezer is right in that the best answer you will get will be from your local building inspector on monday morning. As its sunday and you are in a blind panic i would suggest that firstly the council have indicated it has been built correctly with accordance to drawings they approved. It may be a clerical error on their part, however the worst that can happen is that they wil have to make a further inspection for a certificate to be issued and you may have to pay a further fee.
It shouldnt invalidate your house insurance
If there is a cock up then yes your solicitor should have noticed it.

I wouldnt lose to much sleep


As for the reply by ace, whats the point in that? There is an etiquette and a set of rules to the forum its quite simple. I suggest before you slag someone off you might have a look at the tone of your previous posts and the helpful content in them. I bet Mandy is really pleased youve been able to add such a helpful and informative contribution to her question.

 

[-dj-]

and you ace gave the origional poster everything they needed to know did you???

 

[-dj-]

sorry thermo, other windows open, if i had seen your reply then i wouldn't have commented.

 

[Thermo]

no not at all, glad to see someone shares my sentiment

 

[AdamW]

19) Feel free to point a "new poster" to any of these rules. (don't leave it all to breezer and his understudy)

Thermo has the question covered, so I will just focus on the other bit

As one who gets bees in his bonnet I can see where Mandy is coming from, she does point out it is Saturday and she won't be able to speak to them until Monday. I often wish I could ring up council department A, buy something from shop B, have a word with neighbour C, at 3am.

I am puzzled though... I am trying to think of 4-letter words that start with "k", and none I know are particularly insulting:

Kant (as in Emmanuel Kant... are you calling Breezer a philosopher?)
Kart (are you calling him a 2-stroke motor vehicle?)
Kent (are you saying he is a county sometimes referred to as the Garden of England?)
Kuru (a disease similar to CJD, but still not an insult as such)
Kelp (some kind of gooey stuff that lives in the sea)
Kemp (not sure what it is, but I reckon Kempston is probably named after it)

 

[mandyp]

My apologies for starting a 'Flame thing'. It was a panic post and I probably shouldn't have!

Phoned the council yesterday and spoke to a typically unhelpful bloke that informed me that it wouldn't matter if my paperwork confirmed that work had been carried out after the building warrant, there is no way that the council would give us a completion certificate. Basically, he said they'd issued a 'letter of comfort' and when we come to sell our house that would be between our solicitor and the potential purchaser. So, it seems I'm stuck with it!

Have to say that had our solicitor informed us that there wasn't a completion certificate, we would not have bought the house, but hey ho, we probably don't have a leg to stand on with that either! We, stupidly, assumed that the solicitor would make sure all that was in place. So, for anyone else buying a house with an extension, don't rely on your solicitor, check it yourself!

I don't think the post was unhelpful, merely pointing out that I had broken posting rules....my apologies for that,

Mandy

 

[towman]

Actually you'd probably have quite a case against your solicitor - they have failed to check all documentation etc for the house and that all works etc are "legal" - might be worth contacting someone like the Law Society, Citizens Advice etc to see if they can help - it would certainly be worth checking to see if you have some redress against the Solicitor.

 

[masona]

Have to agreed with towman, does sounds like the solicitor is at fault.