Building Regulations and Planning Permission: What to Check Before You Buy A UK Property
When you're buying a property, the focus tends to be on the visible: the condition of the rooms, the size of the garden, the quality of the kitchen. What's much harder to see is whether the work that's already been done to the property was done correctly, safely and whether it was properly approved.
Building regulations and planning permission issues are among the most common problems to emerge during conveyancing, and they can be among the costliest to resolve. Here's what you need to understand and ask, before you proceed.
What is planning permission?
Planning permission is approval from the local authority (council) to carry out certain types of development or change of use. Not all work requires planning permission, many smaller projects fall under permitted development rights, but significant alterations, extensions and changes of use typically do.
If a previous owner carried out work that required planning permission but didn't obtain it, you could inherit that problem when you buy. The local authority has the power to require unauthorised works to be reversed, rectified or made safe, even if the works were carried out years ago.
What are building regulations?
Building regulations are separate from planning permission and are often confused with it. While planning permission relates to whether work can be done, building regulations relate to the standard to which it must be done. They cover structural integrity, fire safety, insulation, drainage, electrical work and more.
Work that requires building regulations approval needs to be inspected before, during and after construction, finishing with a signed off completion certificate at the end. Without a completion certificate, there's no formal evidence that the work was carried out safely and to the required standard.
Why does this matter for buyers?
If a property has had an extension, loft conversion, garage conversion or other significant work carried out without the appropriate building regulations approval or planning permission, you could face significant costs and complications after you buy. In some cases the work may need to be regularised, which involves a retrospective inspection and approval process that can be expensive. In other cases the local authority may require the work to be altered or removed entirely. It's also worth knowing that some mortgage lenders will decline to lend on a property where building regulations approval is missing, which can affect your ability to secure finance or remortgage in the future. Even where an indemnity policy is available to cover the risk, it's important to understand what you're taking on.
This is something I know from personal experience. A missed question about building regulations on a loft conversion in my own property purchase led to costs running into the tens of thousands of pounds. Read the full story in the property buying question that could have saved me thousands.
What should your solicitor be checking?
Your solicitor should be asking the seller to confirm whether any alterations or works have been carried out, and whether the appropriate planning permission and building regulations approval was obtained for each. They should be requesting copies of any completion certificates and planning approvals as part of the conveyancing process.
If approvals or certificates are missing, your solicitor may recommend one of three courses of action: the sellers should obtain retrospective approval from the local authority (this could add significant delays), taking out an indemnity policy to cover the risk, or asking the for a reduction in the property price to cover the cost of the defective works. For more on what your solicitor should be doing throughout the process, read our guide to the conveyancing process.
What can you do as a buyer?
Even before your solicitor gets involved, there are questions worth asking at the viewing stage. Has any work been done to the property? If so, was planning permission obtained and is there a building regulations completion certificate? These are simple questions that can reveal a great deal about the property's history and the seller's awareness of potential issues.
You don't need to be an expert to ask them, you just need to know they're worth asking. Our guide to 10 questions to ask when viewing a house covers this and other questions worth raising at the viewing stage.
The full checklist
The Home Truths Guide includes the complete checklist of 100+ questions to ask your solicitor about planning permissions and building regulations approvals, alongside checklists covering every other stage of buying a home in the UK.
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