Purchase of refurbished house without planning permission

I think you should be talking out the insurance, if you decide to, so they have the duty to you. Vendor can if they wish for themselves. But make sure they pay for it, or discount in lieu. The closer it get to exchange, the more they wil be desperate it goes through.

What seems like insignificant tasks can be a disproportionate nightmare when selling.

If it needs a fire alarm, then you may need a LL electric supply, fire doors tumescent strips etc etc. Def worth checking if any chance LA could class it an HMO, and if it needs licensing, even if self contained.

The solicitors will sort out the insurance and vendor will pay.

I think, Chris, you are being slightly over the top here. if it was an HMO Roman would have said so, his query was about the windows without consent.

HMO's are fine with heat and smoke alarms, if Roman wants to use it as one then surely that is his responsibility to make sure that it up to it not the man selling a house without consent for windows.

I'll let the solicitors know about indemnity insurance option, surprised they did not mention it as a way forward themselves. See you guys and 118 are a Godsend! Yes, I don't mind paying for the alarms(one on each floor I believe).. Sorry ,I should have said ,although it is a 3 storey property, it is quite a small 2 bed abode . Not even in Japan, where I used to live, would this be considered a HMO. Thanks again.

Reply to the comment left by "Roman Chelsea" at "03/02/2016 - 15:15":

It becomes a HMO if 3 or more people forming 2 or more households live there.

Reply to the comment left by "Michael Barnes" at "03/02/2016 - 23:27":

Thank you Michael., in that case, on both counts will not qualify as HMO

Hi again, just for your information. I spoke to my conveyancer and put it to him that a possible workaround was to insist the vendor take out indemnity insurance. He replied that the property is a listed one although it was not clearly identified as one on local authority records. Therefore it would not be possible to arrange indemnity insurance. I hope that this helps anyone who should find themselves in a similar situation.

Not really, the indemnity insurance is to pay the costs should there be an issue with anything that does not have the proper consent - I know because I had a Grade II* listed building that did not have the full consent for a replacement windows - it was building control that was missing. Because my uber efficient solicitor told me this (I didn't know) I called building control and then she told me that I now couldn't get indemnity insurance because I'd alerted them and hadn't thought that I'd do something so quickly - but could have if I hadn't, so put in a new window with building control consent, the original one had been fine at the time it was put in but now the regs had changed for this eco nonsense and i had to have an E rated one - I did not have to do this has I could have claimed that as a Listed building I could have been exempt for this.

Word of caution don't act (as I did) until you have ALL the info. Mine came up in a search for the sale of the property - listed building consent had been given and a visit by building control but not the signing off of the job (it was not a plastic window!) but my husband became ill and died during the works so I was not aware that he hadn't completed with the Building Control department.

Reply to the comment left by "Roman Chelsea" at "05/02/2016 - 08:24":

I don't understand why not.

You can easily check whether any building is listed online for free. Many were done on a drive by basis I the 1950s.
As I said earlier, a condition is that you DONT contact them, OTHER than to do ordinary searches.

My solicitor used First Title, 0808 1006789. 18 months ago, and the vendor paid - via a deduction in the selling price.

Prem was £535 for £200,000 cover. This was on a grade II building.

For noncompliance with fensa/building regs (for work undertaken more than 10years ago)

And for a building regs condition not being complied with
And chancel repair

Legal&claims (at) first title.eu

If you've had a thorough survey done I wouldn't worry too much about this. Firstly get a quote to replace the doors and windows with compliant ones, then negotiate the relevant discount if it is in excess of the £3K already offered.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES would I flag this up to the local council, as if they are unchallenged within a certain number of years (check your council website for details) they can remain. We had a similar thing with a property that we had replaced windows without permission and tried to remortgage we were made by the lender to take out insurance cover even though this period had already elapsed...but it wasn't a major issue as the policy is fairly cheap.