We are in the process of selling our house and on the solicitors questionnaire I put that we had an attic conversion (I presumed it wasn't built with one), but no paper work as it was done a long time ago. Our old solicitors haven't got anything. Our buyers have refused to accept an indemnity insurance and requested that we apply to the council for a building regulations certificate to be issued.

My conern is that if you were going to convert an attic these days you have to use certain materials, have self closing fire doors, an alarm system wired into the mains and a fire escape.

If we get the council round and therefore open a case with them, would they insist that we make alterations to todays standards, or would they look at it in terms of the standards around when it was done?

Anyone had a similar problem? Any advice?

i would sell it as storage space,...

it may open a can of beans.

also it wont be up to the latest standards anyway :(

if you're in a victorian terrace, the house was most likely built with an attic room, so it isn't a conversion - hence it would not be required to conform to current building regs

if it did, all single glazed windows would have to be removed, level access would need to be provided to every home.... you just can't retrospectively apply those conditions

if you have a real set of stairs to the attic, peel back the carpet and see if they are original. See if the door at the bottom of the stairs is original. And if you've still got the original dormer or you're on the end so have a window up there - you've cracked it. Just sort the paperwork out that you filled in wrong!

hi there,
its not just as simple as putting a fire door on and smoke alarms. it oviously hasent been done to builing regs or the council would have some record of this, even if you dont have any paper work or anything.
so it would all need to pass TODAYS building regs which means all the walls would have to be insulated properly, the floor would have to be surported by steel beams, insulation in the floor, fire doors and so on.

I went to look a job similar to yours, a 3 bed with loft, accept the previous owners (years befor) took the stair case out the small bedroom and put a loft hatch back in to regain the small bedroom, because the staircase in the small bedroom made the house into a 2 bed with storage (because the loft was not done to regs), but if you take the stairs out the small bedroom you then have a 3 bedroom house, which is worth more value than a 2 bed with storage.

If you want to do the loft out to builing regs theres a good chance you will have to rip it all out and start from scrach and this could be at a cost of about 15k depending on the size oviously.

hope this helps a bit

We are in the process of selling our house and on the solicitors questionnaire I put that we had an attic conversion (I presumed it wasn't built with one), but no paper work as it was done a long time ago. Our old solicitors haven't got anything. Our buyers have refused to accept an indemnity insurance and requested that we apply to the council for a building regulations certificate to be issued.

My conern is that if you were going to convert an attic these days you have to use certain materials, have self closing fire doors, an alarm system wired into the mains and a fire escape.

If we get the council round and therefore open a case with them, would they insist that we make alterations to todays standards, or would they look at it in terms of the standards around when it was done?

Anyone had a similar problem? Any advice?

Just ask them if they want the property or not, as you've decided to stay put if they don't want it.

Thanks for all the advice. Our buyers have finally agreed to accept an indemnity insurance.
It turns out that the Council will only issue retrospective Building Regs certificate for work done after 1985 anyway. To do this you need to get an architect to submit plans, they inspect the work, open it up if necessary, but issue a certificate based on the regs at the time it was built. But you need to know when this was.
It's a pity none of our solicitors new this information, it could have saved a lot of time and worry.

oh dear that does sound like a lot of hassel anyone could do without.
i know a really good architect we use, hes quite cheap aswell but really good.

Martin mellor 01709710126 or 07812507314

good luck with it all.