A close friend is in the process of selling up and moving house and has dis covered at the last minute before completion that there is no paperwork fro m the landlord agreeing to layout changes she made. She believes the change s were submitted years ago in a letter but there is no reply. Changes consi st mainly of removing a partition wall between kitchen and living room. It' s a small one bedroom flat and you enter directly into the kitchen/diner as it is now, with the partition wall removed.
The potential purchaser wants to use the flat for subletting, and hasn't re searched this yet. He is unaware as to whether building regs for subletting require a partition wall between kitchen and living room.
Needless to say the landlord isn't replying to emails and the person who sh ould sort this out is mostly "out of the office" so we're not getting any h elp there. My friend is on the verge of completion so this situation has to be solved quickly or the whole sale could fall through. Of course she shou ld have fixed this before, and she feels guilty and highly stressed for not doing so, but this situation still needs a solution, and a solution that i s as simple and financially viable as possible.
One solution could be to put back the wall. The purchaser may agree to the sale on this basis IF it were demanded in the building regs for subletting.
So at this point we need to know ASAP what actually are the building regs f or subletting regarding a separate kitchen, entrance through a kitchen and such. Knowing where to find the regs on this would also help.
Can anyone advise or generally come up with any good ideas on this?