Building Regulations Certificate

Mar 09, 2015 42 Replies

My daughter is considering a house - it has extensions to 3 sides. I told her she should at least get sight of the Certificate that shows compliance with the current Building regulations. She has asked the Estate Agent and they have said that the vendor's solicitor will not release a copy unless they table a firm offer.



Any thoughts?


In message , DerbyBorn writes

Seems a silly stance to take.

so either:

  1. Walk away, if the vendor/solicitor is being awkward.
  2. make an offer, it's no commitment ('firm offer' is meaningless).

Agree on both counts - they are being stupid.

Unless the property is in Scotland

Andrew

Seems entirely fair not to be producing paperwork left, right and centre before somebody's even offered on the place.

Her offer can always be withdrawn or reduced, right up until exchange of contracts, which is WEEKS away, at the conclusion of all the legals - during which BR and PP paperwork for the extensions will be required.

/2. make an offer, it's no commitment ('firm offer' is meaningless). /1

This.

Make any offer subject to all paperwork checking out?

Jim K

JimK wrote in news:b5964a48-8dab-4a9b-b2ee- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

I would have expected a good estate agent (or vendor) to have had copies to hand to aid the sale.

Even there offers can be made conditionally.

I would go further and say if there was the slightest irregularity, it would give the buyer further room for negotiation.

I wouldn't. The EA never even sees them.

The vendor fills in the property information form, including details of any BR/PP-subject work, later in the whole process, and sends it plus paperwork to their solicitor, who send it on to the buyer's solicitor.

Assuming that the house is worth more than a second hand Renault Clio and that the seller would like to sell the house and not f*ck about then it would it be too much trouble to supply for a copy of the BR and PP documents to a buyer?

Of course it isn't - and they would be, as a matter of course, during the legals - which happen AFTER an offer's been put in and accepted...

Isn't it the case that if the extensions (or whatever) are more than two years old nothing can be done about Building Regulations compliance?

My experience is the EA will maintain copies of any documents that might pass from seller to a prospective buyer, and are happy to produce them if another prospective buyer asks the same question.

That is generally after an offer has been accepted and solicitors appointed, where there has already been a modest liability.

Yes, and after your solicitor has already clocked up a bill.

Unless it's a recent extension, it will not meet the current building regulations.

It's not an unreasonable request - noone (including the vendor unless they are a pillock) is going to want to waste a lot of time money and a possible chain collapse for one bit of paper that they ought to have to hand and could trivially pass a copy to the agent.

Except as this particular point is important to the buyer, cutting out the middle man and just digging the damn certificate out would seem to be in order...

I think the buyer cares that it was inspected and passed the applicable regs (or the vendor even bothered to get a BNA and cert done).

Capitol wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@brightview.co.uk:

Our concern is that it met the regulations that were current when it was built.

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