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dear sir or maddame. about 8 years ago we had an extention put on our house. it was below 70 cu ,so the planning people said we did not need planning permission, but what no one pointed out at the time was i would need building regs. i just told the brick layer to start. the founds were put in a the same level as the house original founds etc. since the extention was built i have moved my mortgage and this was not picked up in 2000. i have recently had a valuation done on my house and this has now been picked up. i am told that it is to late to get building regs and that there is a form of insurance i can buy to allow me to make my house sellable again, can you explain what is involved in getting this done please?

Talk to your solicitor about a Building Regulations Consent Indemnity Poilcy. This kind of policy is (usually) issued against action being taken by local authorites in respect of taking work down which does not have building regulation approval. The policy can be passed onto the buyer who is then safe against any action by the council. It does not however insure you, or them, against any failure in the work which is not covered by the building regulations so, for example, if the foundations crack and the extension subsides, you are not covered, however, if the council decide to tell the owners to take down the extension because of a lack of regulation approval, you should be covered. Please check all of this information with your solicitor, we are not involved in construction law in any way and are only able to pass on information which has been given to us.

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Hi,

You would be able to retrospective Building Regulation approval for your extension by submitting a Regularisation application to your local building control authority.

There would be a set of application forms, and a fee to pay, and you would need to expose certain elements of the construction (such as foundations, floors, drainage etc) to enable the Local Authority to ascertain if the construction meet the regulations which were in place at the time the extension was completed.

The indemnity insurance policies are often mis-sold, and the most appropriate solution would be to seek retrospective building regulation approval. The building control department can not pursue any enforcement proceedings under the Building Regulations as there is a cut-off point which is 12months from works being completed. (building control could pursue an injunction but there would need to be major fire safety if structural contraventions for this to happen.

Hope this helps