Building Notice or not

In message , John Rumm writes

I'm 95% certain that the forms we filled almost 3 years ago in asked for Fensa certs if they applied.

And our buyers raised a query, and we queried somethings when we bought this house.

I agree that many things will pass unnoticed either way. and that a buyer has the choice of not worrying about things that don't have a BR approval etc.

But there is also the risk of holding up a sale (in our case) - or of buyers being put off by what they see as 'dodgy' things

Reply to
chris French
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It was eminently sensible for the buyer of the last house I sold.

MBQ

Reply to
Man at B&Q

The ones I did earlier this year made no mention of them... I think solicitors have lost interest after the initial bout of enthusiasm when they were introduced.

Indeed. Much depends on the circumstances, the time elapsed, and the work in question.

Reply to
John Rumm

Once you have joined one of the 'guilds' then self-certification and notification is fairly cheap. Of course it takes a huge amount up front to join, register and renew.

Reply to
Ed Sirett

Certainly the wording of the "Sellers Property Information Form, 4th edn" which appears to be what most solictors seem to use, includes questions about building regs, planning permission, and asks for FENSA /Building regs certs for any glazing work done after April 2002.

Presumably this form isn't used by everyone though.

David

Reply to
Lobster

Most properties will soon be sold with HIPs.

The questions in the dreadfully-designed "official" Home Use forms are:

  1. While the current owner has owned the property, have there been any building works to the property?

which can be answered yes/no/don't know

and

If you answered ?Yes? to question 9, was any planning permission, building control approval or listed building consent obtained for the works?

which you can answer: Yes / Needed but not obtained / No, but work covered by approved person scheme / No, not needed / Don?t know

then:

If ?Yes? or ?No, but work covered by approved person scheme? please give details:

But there's also an option "Undisclosed" for the whole section.

To those (well, the usual gentleman) who says "you must..." whenever something like this crops up, I would suggest looking at buying a property at auction. You'll be lucky to get any title guarantee, let alone subtle stuff like whether the light shades are included.

Reply to
Autolycus

Buy how could you answer 'don't know' if any building works had been carried out? Ninja Stealth Builders?

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

I asked someone in the office who moved 2 months ago. He wasn't asked anything like that that he could recall. He replaced his boiler 2 years ago, had no idea until today that he should have told anyone about it at the time, and nothing from his buyer's solicitor asked anything about it. (He had installed the previous boiler 20 years before that.)

Someone else who moved around 3 years ago was only asked about approvals for any structural changes and underground drainage changes they'd made, and they hadn't done any of either.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

So the correct answer is to answer "Don't know" so that the whole silly nonsense is brought into disrepute as soon as possible and the jobsworths are out of work.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Don't know is unattributable.

Analogue answers to an attempted digital question.

Reply to
Andy Hall

Yup I had a look at one I have here, and it includes it in a rather convoluted way - one section about were replacement windows installed, and if so are there any guarantee. Then another in the section on building regs and PP - was consent obtained if needed, and then later a bit on its own referees back to one section by number and does mention FENSA. Oddly however I have also seen what claims to be the 4 edn of the same document without the question.

Its fairly widely used IIUC.

Reply to
John Rumm

Would most people class a replacement window as "building work"?

Reply to
John Rumm

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

"The wife might have had something done whilst I was in prison, mate. Wanna see my tattoos?"

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Quite possibly, but he is not the one filling in the form...

Reply to
John Rumm

I think I saw on their website sometime recently that they have set up a class of registration to cover the homers.

Found it

Still costs £175 though.

Reply to
<me9

You are missing the point of the original question. The potential for a botched installation to cause serious injury or even death should concern any responsible person. The reason that solicitors ask for confirmation is because of a case where proper enquiries were not made and as a result a buyer ended up with a large five figure bill which the solicitor, or his insurers, ended up paying. Sending the form back with a lot of don't know answers is likely to raise suspicions. If you sell in a buyer's market then it is just the sort of thing to slow down or prevent a sale. Certainly there are a lot of trivial items which a lot of people will take a chance on but that is very different from a those items related to safety.

As for the comment about not getting proper title when buying at auction that is, to use a technical term complete bollocks.

Peter Crosland

Reply to
Peter Crosland

(in reply to my posting)

No I'm not.

The correlation between not notifying building control and an installation being dangerous is imperfect.

So they ask the question, and can then blame the buyer for accepting any answer given.

Well, yes. It will put off some buyers, but some buyers are easily put off.

You have a surprisingly detailed knowledge of the auction at which I bought some land less than a fortnight ago - or did you perhaps feel that by crudely paraphrasing what I wrote you could justify your intemperate abuse?

"Title guarantee (full/limited) : No title guarantee"

is what is written on the front page of the Contract in front of me. I took the trouble to find out the implications of it - rather than just deriding it as "bollocks" - because I didn't lack the skill or knowledge to find out. Please take a clue from the box on your way out.

Reply to
Autolycus

Like most things in this world. It does not alter the fact that doing it by the book is wise in the litigious society we live in.

You are making the classic mistake of thinking that one incident means that the experience applies to every other auction, the details of which you would have no knowledge. Perhaps I was wrong to use the phrase I did but your comment in the context was nevertheless complete rubbish.

Anyone buying a property without evidence of good title would be foolish to say the least. A classic case of caveat emptor and taking steps to insure was the right thing to do.

Peter Crosland

Reply to
Peter Crosland

No sir, it is you who, for reasons I cannot imagine, are failing to read what I have written. I did not suggest it applies to every auction, but a little research will confirm that the auction I attended was by no means unique. Four of the seven lots at that auction were offered with no title guarantee. The solicitor for the seller explained that it was a technique sometimes used by the Church Commissioners when selling land - it means, inter alia, that if the buyer's solicitor raises many requisitions, the seller's solicitor can send him a bill for answering them.

Still think so on mature reflection?

Insurance is one way of managing risk, but there are others. I chose one of the others, and I made sure I could distinguish between buying a property without good title, and one without a full title guarantee.

Reply to
Autolycus

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