retrospective planning again, sorry!

[seka1980]

ok, so ive found a bunglow i like but it has had an extention that had not been signed of by building regs, the only time building regs saw it was when the work comenced, the extention was built over 10 years ago.
i want to put in an offer and have a morgage in place ready to go
what are my options?
what the worst that can happen if u buy the house?
can i be made to take it down?
will it affect get the morgage?
and anwers would be a major help
cheers
jon

 

[mointainwalker]

Why do so many posts begin with ok, instead of hello or similar ?

What has happened to peoples' ideas of common courtesy, especially when they are asking for help ?

Personally, if someone sent something to me starting "ok" and ending "cheers" , I know what I would do with it it.

How much of an exception does that make me ?

Edit - forgot the U instead of you - ha ha !

 

[DevilDamo]

What about planning permission?

Surely the best and only advice to offer is to speak to your (estate) agent?

 

[Richard C]

Your post is titled “Retrospective Planning” but then refers to the extension “not being signed off under Building Regulations”; these two aspects of legislation are completely different, which of these are you concerned with, or is it both

 

[seka1980]

It was ment as a friendly ok!
and sorry for the confusion, im pretty new to this and got a bit confused, the questions are related to building regs as planning was not needed

 

[DevilDamo]

planning was not needed

Has that been confirmed in writing by the LPA?

 

[spongobongo]

the extention was built over 10 years ago.

If more than four years old, it's lawful and immune from planning enforcement.

what the worst that can happen if u buy the house

You can't be served with a building regs enforcement notice more than 12 months after the date of completion of the building work. However, your Council could apply to the courts for an injunction for the same purpose if it considered the extension to be so badly built that it poses a real and imminent danger to the occupants or neighbours.

 

[jeds]

Providing the extension is in reasonably good order it is immune from normal enforcement action (planning or building regs) and will not be a problem.

However, you will be faced with the same questions when you come to sell and some (nervous) people would not consider buying a property with those sort of issues. Therefore you have a slightly reduced market and the value should reflect that.

My estimate would be the cost of getting the building regs regularised plus ths cost of a letter to confirm you are immune from planning enforcement.

 

[seka1980]

update

I’ve just had an offer accepted for.
The property is 3 doors away from me and is fairly similar to my house when I bought it 3 years ago, they are very strange bungalows that consist of a 6.5m x 5m building with a gable roof and a separate bathroom with a small flat roof linking to two, when I bought mine, I knocked down the bathroom and connecting flat roof and re-built an extension that didn’t need planning because of its size, the problem with this new property is that I’ve heard from some good sources that the when the extension was done ,the owners didn’t get planning or building regs
Now this is where its gets messier as we are buying it as repossession, now I know that the man who had it repossessed had the house for 12 years and the people before him did the extension about 14 years ago. I intend to buy the house what ever happens, as im looking forward to learning lots of skills building it, but what im not sure about is how to find out more about the property without letting the council know about the planning issues..
I’ve read that I should get indemnity insurance on the property so that I’m covered against anything the council could ask me to do, but people have also told me that I should not mention to the council or even ask them about planning permission on the property as once I have done this I can not get indemnity insurance!
Am I allowed to go to the planning office and just freely look over plans without bringing this problem to there attention?
What I basically want to see is the original drawings to see the original outline of the building, As I want to extend the extension a bit more, maybe even knock some of it down and change it abit and want to know me options

 

[jeds]

What makes you think the planning department will have any drawings? If it was built with no planning and no building regs they aren't going to have anything are they.

Extensions built that long ago are immune and you have nothing to worry about except future buyers may be a bit nervous of buying it without.

Whoever told you about the indemnity insurance and informing the local authority was correct. You won't get indemnity once they are involved.

Having said that, the only reason to have indemnity insurance is to satisfy a lender if there is one involved. Otherwise it's a complete waste of money. That's why the insurance companies are so keen to sell it to you. It's a one off payment which they gladly accept, bank and forget about because they know it will never arise again.