Missing Completion Docs

[Mark Stowell]

We are in the throes of selling our house which had an extension built in

1992. It appears that the building was never finally signed off by the Council although they visited and checked it numerous times during construction and I'm sure made a final inspection. We are very near to exchange stage but our purchasers are panicking over this although their solicitors have no problems with the missing docs as we have said we will provide an indemnity policy, this seems to be common practice. The only other option is to get the council back out for a reinspection and our Sols believe this will take some time. Once we do this we cannot get an indemnity policy issued aftrewards. Our solicitor can't see what the fuss is about and we need to resolve this speedly or we may loose our purchase. Our purchasers will only deal through their sols which also slows things down. Anyone got any bright ideas of a way round this other than to remarket the house.

Thanks Mark

[DIY]

Might be worth asking on uk.legal

[Al]

Our vendor took out an indemnity policy to cover a lintel put in place in the early 80's.

It is standard practice, I'd push for the indemnity policy. It's going to be quicker than getting a building inspector to put his mug of tea down...

[Duncan]

Our Mortgage lender's solicitor (not ours!) insisted on one of these for our house when we bought it, as there is an unregistered loft conversion. This was a right pain, having THREE lawyers involved. The loft work was done before 1984. The loft has been nicely done (and two builders who've seen it assure us it is sound), but the staircase was a death trap, hardly more than a ladder with carpet nailed on, and we've replaced it with one which meets current standards. But as we didn't replace the floor, move the skylight a few inches or add another wall the whole conversion still won't pass current regs as the entire loft apparently has to pass.

I suspect this puts us in a far worse position if we ever sell it, as the indemnity certificate covers the original crap staircase.

Duncan