Problems found after you bought · Building regulations approval
When I bought this property, I didn’t know A missing building regulations certificate could hold up a sale or a remortgage. Now I’m stuck.
Would you have bought the property if you had known?
If you had known there was no building regulations certificate before you committed, and understood the problems it could cause when you later came to sell or remortgage, would it have changed your decision?
- Would you have paid the same price?
- Would you have wanted it investigated first?
- Would you have walked away?
If knowing about the problem might have changed what you did, the next question is obvious.
Did you receive the right advice when you bought?
You may not know the answer yet. But if nobody explained the problem, or you are now questioning what you were told at the time, that is worth looking at.
You don’t need to know whether anyone was at fault. Tell us what happened and when you bought. We’ll talk it through with you.
Why a lack of building regulations approval can hold up a sale or remortgage
Building regulations are about how work was built, not whether it was allowed. Work that may need building control sign-off includes an extension or loft conversion, a garage conversion, removing a chimney breast or a load bearing wall, new windows, a boiler, rewiring or a woodburner. Evidence can take different forms: for example, a completion or regularisation certificate for work dealt with through building control, or a certificate issued under an applicable competent-person scheme for installation work such as windows, heating or electrics.
So no building regulations certificate on the file does not always mean no approval. Work may have been notified by a registered installer under a self-certification scheme, and a duplicate certificate may still be obtainable from the scheme or the council. Equally, work may never have been inspected at all. Which of those applies is a question of fact, and the answer changes what you need to do.
What holds up the transaction is that nobody can yet tell which it is. On a sale, the buyer’s solicitor will need to consider what evidence exists when advising the buyer and complying with any applicable lender requirements. On a remortgage, your conveyancer considers the proposed lender’s current requirements. Requirements differ between lenders.
How the problem usually surfaces
A certificate nobody can find
The work was done and may well have been signed off, but no paperwork can be produced. A duplicate may still be obtainable.
Windows, boiler or electrics
Replacement windows, a new boiler, rewiring or a woodburner were installed, and there is no scheme certificate for the installation.
Structural work with no sign-off
A chimney breast or load bearing wall was removed, or a loft or garage converted, and there is no completion certificate for it.
A survey that already flagged it
A structural survey or homebuyer report identified the problem before an earlier purchase, which can put it outside what a policy will cover.
An allowance instead of a certificate
On an earlier purchase, money was allowed or retained in place of the absent paperwork. That does not resolve the position for your buyer.
A policy with the wrong limit
A policy exists and may extend to your buyer and their lender, but its limit was set at an earlier value and may no longer match the price.
What you can do about it now
Make a list first. Ask your conveyancer to record what work was done and when, then chase what exists. Duplicates can often be obtained from the installer, the scheme or building control, and a local search may show an application or completion entry, though what each proves needs checking.
Unless there is an immediate safety concern, take advice before approaching the council or making a regularisation application. A policy may require that nobody has contacted the authority, and may exclude loss where an application is made without the insurer’s consent. Cover may also be unavailable where the work is recent.
A regularisation application is one route; a lack of building regulations certification indemnity policy is another. Subject to its terms, a policy may cover specified loss arising from enforcement, such as legal costs or the cost of complying with an enforcement requirement. It does not certify the work, insure its quality, remedy defects because they exist, or make the position sufficient for every lender.
If you are selling, your conveyancer can ask the buyer’s solicitor what remains unresolved and whether it arises from the buyer’s lender’s requirements. If you are remortgaging, your conveyancer can check your proposed lender’s requirements directly.
What happened when you bought?
The work was done either before you bought or since. If it was done before, the certificates were capable of being asked for at the time, and the records may show what was produced and what was not. If you had the work done yourself, the questions are different and concern what your installer or builder gave you. Either way, what was established when you bought is a question of fact.
Several records from the time may matter, and some may survive. Certificates supplied on your purchase may still be on the file. The seller’s property information form may list the works and say whether certificates existed. The replies your conveyancer received may show what was chased. The completion statement may show an allowance or retention agreed because a certificate could not be produced. There may already be an indemnity policy, worth finding before paying for another. Your report on title may show what you were told. The lender’s historical written instructions may also be difficult to recover, because they are revised regularly and superseded versions disappear from public view.
Was this property really mortgageable when you bought?
Getting a mortgage when you bought does not necessarily tell you how readily mortgageable the property was across the wider market. There are two historical questions worth asking.
What did your own lender’s written requirements say about building regulations compliance when you bought? And what express requirements did other lenders have recorded at the same time?
Lenders’ written requirements were not necessarily uniform, and their wording changed over time. That means both which lender you used and when you bought can matter.
Lenders set out in writing what they expect a conveyancer to do about particular features of a property. Those instructions are revised regularly, and superseded versions drop out of public view, which can make a question as simple as what was my conveyancer told about building regulations in the year I bought? surprisingly difficult to answer from the sources available today. Lexsure has retained historical lender-specific conveyancing requirements since April 2007, so where the records permit they can help reconstruct what your lender’s requirements said at the time and how that compared with the wider lending market.
Across that period, 22 lenders in our covered archive population have had express requirements about building regulations on record, addressed across 6 separate places in their instructions. The earliest express appearance we can identify in the material we hold dates from 2008; the most recent recorded change of wording is 2026.
Two points of precision, because they matter. “Earliest identified” means the earliest express appearance in the material we hold, not the date any requirement began. And where our material for a particular lender and period is incomplete, that lender is left out of these figures rather than counted as having said nothing. We do not treat an incomplete record as showing that the lender had no requirement.
So, when did you buy?
Changing the year here doesn’t send us an enquiry or tell us who you are.
An example of the kind of wording in force 2007 to 2011
One lender’s requirements, not named, by way of illustration. Requirements were not uniform and this is not the wording that applied to your purchase — that depends on your lender and your completion date.
No lender handbook Part-2 (specific) requirements were published prior to . But professionals were still under a duty of care on this topic. It is still worth speaking to us even if the purchase predates .
If we find no express requirement for your lender
Where our material for your lender and period is complete, the answer may simply be that no express wording about building regulations appears in it. Where our material is incomplete, we treat that as a gap in what we hold, not as evidence that your lender said nothing.
Either way, the lender’s instructions are only one part of the record from the time.
The wider picture
Historical lender requirements can help us understand how mortgageable the property was when you bought. The conveyancing file and the advice given to you also matter.
Lexsure holds historical Report on Title material: the reports conveyancers sent to homebuyers, going back years. That material shows the kinds of building regulations issues that were being addressed when firms reported to buyers, and it is a second and separate record from what lenders required.
Which works and which certificates
Was a list made of the works carried out, and were you told which certificates were supplied and which were not?
Whether the paperwork was chased
Was a duplicate sought from the installer, the scheme or the council, or was the gap simply reported to you?
What was taken instead
Was an allowance, a retention or an indemnity policy agreed because no certificate could be produced, and who paid?
What the policy covered
Were you told a policy responds to enforcement rather than the standard of the work, and what limit of indemnity it carried?
Whether the effect on selling was explained
Were you told that missing approval or completion certificates could be raised again on a future sale or remortgage, and could matter to a buyer’s lender?
These are examples of issues addressed in historical conveyancing material, not a checklist of what every purchaser should have been told. What mattered in an individual purchase depended on the circumstances and on what was known at the time.
So even if your mortgage completed, or there is nothing unusual in your lender’s historical requirements, it can still be worth talking to us about what happened.
Could this problem have been seen coming?
The relevant starting point is what was known, or could reasonably have been identified, when you bought.
Which certificates were supplied? What did the seller disclose about the works? What was in the conveyancing file? What were mortgage lenders requiring at the time? What kinds of building regulations issues were conveyancing firms addressing with homebuyers? And what were you actually told?
Taken together, that can help build a picture of whether the problem you are facing today was already something that should have been considered when you bought.
Did you receive the right advice?
What the historical evidence can tell us
Where the relevant lender and period are covered, we may be able to establish what that lender’s conveyancing requirements said when you bought, and how that compared with the wider record at the time.
- That does not by itself establish that anyone was negligent, or that you have a claim. Those questions need the original file and legal advice.
- The absence of express wording does not establish that the lender accepted the issue.
- What your conveyancer had to tell your lender and what they had to tell you are different questions, and the second depends on the retainer and the circumstances.
Time limits apply, and in some cases the date on which you first knew enough about the problem matters as well as the date you bought, which is why we ask about both. Our full methodology, including how we treat gaps in the record, is set out in the archive and its limits. Where a solicitor later needs formal historical evidence, Lexsure can provide source-evidenced historical lender information.
Sources and review
This page is about building regulations compliance for work at a property. Whether the work was authorised in planning terms is a separate question: see missing planning permission. Guidance here about the present problem is general information. It is not legal advice about your property.
The rules on building regulations enforcement, the certification schemes referred to on this page, and which works require building control sign-off all change over time. This page deliberately states no periods or thresholds, and the current position must be verified against primary sources and reverified at each review. Editorial: verify the list of works against official guidance, and confirm the current position at each review
Historical lender information is drawn from Lexsure’s archive of lender-specific conveyancing requirements, maintained since April 2007. Figures on this page state the population they are drawn from.