oksleator

Thanks Gus! Yes we pulled out of the sale in the end, but thanks for your advice, this is good to know for the next one.

Yup. I'm sure it'll be lovely!

I presume those stones would get manky pretty quickly, so you'd need to factor in regular cleaning of them all. Ditto all the rest of it, I think. Show gardens do not translate well to real gardens. Try and find some examples of ones that haven't been freshly installed if you want a realistic picture of how it will look long term. Installation of water features is usually the easy bit, I think it's maintenance that equals time or money.

Is the water coming from the roof? Could you install guttering, a water butt, and then have the water flow from the butt into a drain (or put it on your plants if you're planning on greening up the space)?

Thanks guys, your advice was very important. One day we'll get our dream house in the countryside but I don't think it will be in the part of the country we live in now, as we clearly can't afford it. I might move back to ireland one day, plenty of dodgy rural properties there but at least they're cheap!

Hello, just giving a conclusion to this. We pulled out of the sale, not due to the lack of structural warranty in the end, but due to high flood risk (a brook and a culvert converging right next to the building which is at the low point of the land) and the geological report indicating medium risk of subsidence due to compressible deposits. Spoke to a surveyor who said their structural report on the existing build pre conversion wasn't worth the paper it was written on, the flood risk was a serious concern, and to run away. Spoke to a couple of friends who are geo-environmental engineers and they suggested questions to ask them about the build to check the foundations were suitable, but they didn't answer. Also knocked on the doors of the neighbours who said don't buy it, it's flooded several times and the bridge to access it needs rebuilding every couple of years these days due to surface water flowing down the hills. And they never did come up with the initial notice information for the building regs final certificate, so we have no idea what was actually certified. Thank you all for your help. I've learnt a lot! And spent a lot of wasted conveyancer fees, but such is life. They've relisted it as is, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes to sell. I guess they will be looking for a cash buyer who asks fewer questions and is less concerned about floods.

Ugh frustrating. We've had the opposite on our street. Neighbour has a big extension being built and she wanted charred wood, we (neighbours) were all excited to see it. Planning said it's not in keeping so she's had to go the Ayous route, which definitely wont fit with our yorkstone mill cottages. It's not clad yet or I'd take a photo for you.

I love charred timber, Shou Sugi Ban style, I think you can use various different timbers for that, and it's already burnt so resistant to further burning?

Hello, we're looking to buy a bungalow that is a recent conversion from a stable block with a 30% extension (all single story). It has a myriad of problems, several of which have been resolved by better paperwork, but the geographical surveys are worrying me. As it's recently been converted, it's too soon to spot any cracks or subsidence issues. The original stables is about twenty years old, and the extension 3 years old, and everything has been reskimmed, outer bricks added, and a new roof, so it's very hard to spot problems. It's built next to a stream. The geographical survey results came back with the following cautions. I've asked for a structural engineers report for the building design and photos of the foundations etc, but I'm not sure what I should be looking for. The structural survey of the existing building for planning was sparse - it was just a surface inspection, no pits dug and no looking at the existing foundations, which predated the owner so there's no knowledge of its construction. Are these unusual/worrying reports, and what should we be looking for to see if they have built it correctly? Expansion joints between the older (20 year old) stables and the newer extension? What kind of foundations would you expect to put in for the extension in this type of ground? This house is giving me all sorts of heebee jeebees now but my boyfriend is still keen on it so I'm trying to be open minded until we have a definite reason to pull out. Thanks for your help!

Gabions are a good shout. Permeable to water so less likely to fall down, look cool, you could build them yourself, and you can plant ferns and heucheras etc in them. Get them in a mild steel so they rust nicely. Very on trend!

Yes, there is a lender. We've had to report a couple of things to them already, one resolved, one still outstanding. It is a good sanity check!

They were originally planning on using it as a holiday let, so yes I think that is the problem. They've basically jumped through the minimum hoops they could to get it through without considering the requirements for a sale. I tried to get some figures from severn water for putting in access to mains but it has to come from them. I think there are access rights across the field just not across the neighbouring property, so it might be a case of getting them to sign a wayleave agreement, but this would be up to them to sort out. Kelvin how much was enormous cost? Are we talking tens of thousands (or more?!). The house has a LOT of windows and three sets of bifold doors so I would like assurance those are signed off as they would be $$$ to replace. I'm just trying to cover myself in case we need to sell the place ourselves in the near future, as you never know what's around the corner. There is an EPC, I had to get them to do a new one as it was in the address of the neighbouring property and my mortgage lender wouldn't accept it, but that looks fine. The building control was a private company - 'Approved Inspectors" Ltd. The website is running and it's still going strong. No BN or FP number on the document unfortunately. I've searched the county council register as well and no evidence of it, but there are other ones by the same company for the neighbours on there. Another problem is they've screwed up the access rights - there is no legal way through from the nearest public highway. So they definitely have some legal stuff to work through. No idea how long that's going to take them but I doubt it will be quick. Our buyers are patient and understanding but even they have limits, so I'm not feeling particularly optimistic about all this. Thanks everyone for the advice, really appreciate it.

Ah thanks, Jilly, that's useful. I have just gone through the discharge conditions and it looks to me like they addressed them, so I'm not sure why it's still outstanding. Maybe that's a red herring then. if that is a Building regs sign off for the stable conversion, the electric, windows etc and other certs would have been provided at the time, for the BC officer, so I can understand if they didn’t keep them as theoretically there is no need. BC should have copies on their files. Okay that makes sense. I've gone through and found the wording from my solicitor on this matter. She says: The Planning register notes two entries: 1. xxx Extension and conversion of existing stable building into a dwelling 2. yyy Discharge of conditions 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,12,13,14 PENDING I have received a copy of the planning permission at point 1. I have raised an enquiry with the sellers’ solicitor regarding point 2 and I await this document along with evidence from the Local Authority that all the planning conditions have been discharged. There are no entries of a Building Control nature which would indicate that there has been no electrical work, gas work or new windows and doors installed at the property. Noting that there should be entries on the search in this regard I have raised this with the sellers’ solicitor and I have also gone back to the search provider to query this. So I'm not really sure what they've done, is it just missing paperwork that needs uploading, are the LA's files incomplete, or have they done something dodgy? I hope we will find out pretty soon as getting information out of them is like blood from a stone. If they take much longer to answer all these things then we will lose our buyer and the chain will collapse, so you'd think they'd be scrambling around to resolve their messy paperwork.

Yes the water is completely sketchy. I've asked for full transparency on where the pipes are and said I wont proceed until I know the full situation and there's a plan in place to rectify it, as I'm pretty sure it crosses neighbours land without any legal rights in place. The searches don't show a mains pipe anywhere near the property so it looks like it's all private pipes but they are just not giving the details so it definitely isn't above board. The building regs I just don't really understand. Ive searched in the county applications register and there is nothing published related to this property. Do they get deleted pretty quickly? There are a couple of applications for neighbouring properties on there, septic tanks etc. I am 90% sure we will be walking away from this property but as we've already spent thousands to get this far, I'm doing my due diligence before we make a decision. There are also issues with the title deed, it has a medium risk of subsidence (compressible ground), and I don't trust they've built it correctly at this stage. There are so many issues with their paperwork, they're clearly quite happy to cut corners. We were so excited when we had an offer accepted three months ago and then that has just been washed away with each wrestled out bit of bad information. If they'd been upfront about all these issues instead of lying on the property forms and feigning ignorance then we could have resolved and hopefully negotiated through them by now. There's nothing else on the market that works for us so we will just stay put if it falls through. It had land and was in a great location, those things are hard to come by in our crowded corner of england (in our price bracket).

Great, thanks both for the advice.