Hels

Can anyone help??

The story so far;

My Husbands father passed away in January. His parents are divorced and as he died intestate, its up to my Husband and his sister to arrange the estate between the two of them. We are currently selling the family home and we are almost at the exchange point and we received a letter from the buyers solicitor asking about the garage thats at the rear of the property. They are asking for the planning permission and building regulation approval.

We asked my Mother in law about it and she said that the garage was put up in 1988 to replace an existing garage and the garage that was put up was a kit form garage. At the time, they were advised they needed no approval???

We sent this information off to the buyers solicitor and now they are asking for Building indemnity insurance at our cost?

Does anyone have any experience with this? Or have any idea of where we should go from here? I cant let this sale fall through.....

Hels
xxx

Jensen Healey

Hi Hels
Once a building has been up for a certain length of time (can't remember excatly, but I think it's 4 or 7 years or something, certainly less than 16!) the PP isn't an issue - i.e. planning is no longer relevant.
As for Building Regs Approval, you should be able to get a Completion Certificate from your local council's Building Control Department. This will verify that the building was constructed or erected to the relevant standards applying at the time, in which case no indemnity should be required.
HTH
Jeff.

elksa

Pain in the arse. but might be worth paying if you can't let the property sale fall through. I think if memory serves me correctly building indemity insurance costs around £200 and can be organised by your solictor as part of the sale.

the plumber

Friends of ours selling their house had the same problem..........they paid for an indeminty insurance , on a kitchen extention , that the previous owners had built without planning approval. Cost about £200.00 their solicitor sorted it out no problem ,then sale went through fine.


plum

Hels

Thankyou so much for all your replies. I have, this morning, talked to our solicitor and what they said is that because the garage is not a "fixed building" and can actually be dismantled, we are going to tell the other side that if its a problem, we will pull it down. Now, hopefully, the garage was a big enough part of their decision to buy the house in the first place they will not take it any further.

If they do, there is a certificate we can get from the council stating that, as Jenson Healey said, the building has been in use for its proper purpose for over 10 years so it automatically makes it a lawful structure.

This whole process is doing my head right in!!!!

But thanks again for your help....it is very much appreciated....


Hels

The Thorpes

Hi Hels

There was a thread the other day re indemnity insurance as a few of us are having similiar problems!

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...hreadid=244525

Hope you get it all sorted out.

Sam

whisky

We had the same when we bought our last house in the Uk. and the same again when we sold it, over the driveway. Really no problems. Just crossing all eventualities.

Whisky

Paul&Ann-Marie

Sorry hels flower, only just seen your post.

When we sold the house the new buyers pulled us up for an archway that we had put in and wanted the consent forms.

We had two options, 1 was to have planning permission granted post work where someone from the council would come out and inspect it.

The other was an indem thingy policy and cost us something like 18 quid.
we chose the policy and everything continued.
Then they asked about the septic tank and again requested another policy to cover that. AM told our solicitor to tell the buyer to get a grip, do they want the house or not ( fortunately we were not in a position where we needed the sale quickly ) and they said they would get the policy themselves ( my left buttock ! )

Bit pointless really as you have already sorted it out but yes, total headache, it seems the buyers are just trying everything they can to reduce their outgoings ( understandable, if the shoe were on the other foot and all that ) but for the seller it is another hassle and when you are emigrating it just multiplies the stress.

I'm sure your buyer will come back with something similar about the garage, ie: ok, we'll cover it ourselves.

Good luck,

Paul.

pompeywill

I actually built a garage last year at the back of my house.
As long as the garage is more than 5 metres away from the house I didnt need any regs or planning permission.

melaniee

Hi Hels,

I started this other thread. In the end we have had to pay £210 for the insurance even though we are selling which I think is a bloody cheek but as someone said to me, if you want to sell your house pay it! We did not want to but we had to in the end. The price of the insurance depends on the cost of the house so yours may be more or less than what we paid.

If the building work was done after 1985 (I think) you can get retrospective permission or something like that-speak to the planning department at the local council and ask them what you should do.

Stupid isn't it-money making again!

I think more and more people are going to face this issue.

Good luck with it all.

Hels

Thanks for that melaniee...

What we have done is replied to the buyers solicitor and basically said that if the fact it doesnt have the planning permission or building approval that they believe it should have, even after telling them it wasnt required....we could just pull it down....I doubt they will want that, so it should be most interesting to see their response.....

Wol

It happens to us all! Our buyer's solicitor keeps sending requests for information on all sorts of trivia such as surface water drainage - without asking any questions about it!

Phoned them yesterday and lost my rag: said it bloody rains - bloody water runs away. End of conversation.

Another one was "was the garage constructed at the same time as the house: the agent's brochure led them to think it wasn't" . There is absolutely NOTHING in the brochure remotely suggesting that!

They just write letters at £30 a throw until someone tells them to shut up I think. Let's face it, you can dream up trivial questions ad infinitum.

pauldaah

We had the same thing when selling my mums house. They couldn't find any planning permission for the garage and kitchen so the solicitor said to take out the insurance indemnity. It cost about £34
Sue