Garage to Study conversion and regulations If you want to know how your DIY projects could be affected by building and planning regulations, click here to post questions and view answers

[RooDBwoY]

Afternoon all,

I am in the process of buying a house and the Conveyancing is going through at the moment. We are in a very fortunate situation in that there is no chain and we can move in as soon as we have a completion date.

The house is in beautiful condition and is absolutely perfect for us but I have one concern regarding the successful Conveyancing and full survey in that the previous owner has converted the garage (integral to the house, has always had a room above it) into a small utility area and study, with a dividing wall between them. The garage door has been left in place but the room inside has been fully boarded and plastered and a boarded floor put in. Panning permission was obtained in the beginning and the work is obviously now completed. A doorway was put in from the living room into the utility area and another door between the utility area and the study.

Now, we are having a full survey done of the property (the standard one has already been done for the mortgage, which showed no issues) but the owner tells me the building regulations part of the conversion has not been applied for yet and there will be a large retrospective charge to get this certification.

Does anyone know what issues this will cause me? I am actually planning to turn the garage back into a garage as soon as we move in so I don't actually care and will be ripping down all the plasterboard. It will only ever be used as bike and tool storage, never for cars. My worry is that in order to get round the massive charge I will have to have the door from the living room filled back in as it will have been a structural wall.

Any ideas?

[welsh brickie]

if the changes the owner made has not passed the inspection and you have to alter the conversion to gain the certificate then get a builder to give you a quote and knock it off the asking price.It does not matter what changes you make after the sale.

[RooDBwoY]

Ah, so in terms of getting the sale of the house through, will I encounter any problems without the certification from Building Regs?

Apparently she has been told that in order to get the Regs done and dusted retrospectively she will need to fork out £2k and that will obviously delay the process by a couple of months minumum as I don't imagine these things move very quickly. I'd like to avoid this delay just for the sake of a formality and I don't particularly want to start trying to revert the house back to its original state (a lot of work) and neither will she.

The way I see it is that I have two options:

1. Ask for £2k off the sale price and apply for the Building Regs myself and let the sale go through.
2. Get her to do the Building Regs and wait until it's complete before commencing with the sale.

Does that sound about right?

[welsh brickie]

No I don't see any problems in getting the certificate for the work done, But you could be liable to complete the work, once you buy. There is a time limit aswell. but get your own quote it could be more money than she had quoted, then get her to reduce the price accordingly. Check with building control at the local council first to confirm this though

[RooDBwoY]

Cheers welsh brickie. The wheels have been set in motion now and it's looking a lot cheaper than expected.

I'll post back with an outcome.