Do builders care about Building Regs?

Ignorance of the law is no defence.

I have had quite a lot of building work done over the years, including some that needed planning permission and/or building regulations approval. None of the builders concerned have ever asked whether the work was approved, nor would I expect them to.

The work on the house I'm in the process of selling was done in 1986 and 1987. Conveyancing folk want indemnity insurance.

The work in the house I'm now living in was done last year.

Both sets of work were remedial (replacing supports that idiots had taken out).

I've got one - I said I've got one, with all the calcs to which the work was done. Now what?

That trumps a building inspector.

Send that to their lawyers and if they srill want insurance tell them to buy it themselves

I was involved in helping someone sell a house a while back and two issues were raised of a similar nature. One was to do with windows that

The instructions from the solicitor on the second one was don't even contact the council about it because that alone would invalidate any insurance. The first one they just expected the vendor to pay. In the end the vendor paid for the contaminated land indemnity, and told the buyers they could buy their own for the windows if they though it was of any value! Nothing more was said on that ;-)

So in a years time no enforcement action would be viable anyway even if the work was substandard (which its unlikely to be anyway). The process of regularisation (i.e. fixing the paperwork after the fact) would be the same now as in five years time.

Keep it until some point in the future should you decide to try and regularise the work, or if during conveyancing someone suggests you buy them an indemnity.

As Always, say nothing to anybody is best. The last thing you want is busybodies from the council. They are on a job creation mission these days especially. (For themselves).

This is for the house I bought a couple of years ago not the one I'm just selling.

So ignore Building Control requirements?

Almost sounds sensible advice.

You already have - a building notice would need to have been submitted and the fee paid prior to work starting.

(this assumes that one was actually needed for the job in question, and that the builder did not actually notify it anyway without mentioning it)

What did you mean earlier about "regularising the work", what's the upside and downside?

You have the engineer's calcs from when the work was done, and the work's all good. End of story. The rest is you having anxiety.

NT

I'm not clear if all the structural work has got an engineer's calcs, though? Sounds like only some have, and some may be dodgy.

There is a process called regularisation[1] that allows you have a retrospective sprinkling of holy water on the paperwork for a previously non notified building project.

The pro is that you get what is in effect a completion certificate, that will also be registered by the LABC department. So future searches will reveal that the work was done and officialdom is happy with it.

The down sides are it will cost money, take time, and involve various levels of hassle. This may include needing to take apart some of the completed work to allow hidden bits to be inspected. It may also require that you carry out changes to anything not deemed adequate. Lastly you would then need to make good any damage done by the inspection / rectification process. Note that the inspection process might be easier if you have "in progress" photographs of the work as it was carried out.

I dropped someone in it once - I think.

Called the council to check they had PP. Was told they didn't need it, permitted development, but there was no record of any building regs approval...

I bought something else.

Andy