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Any need for Structural warranty (no mortgage)


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Hello there,

 

we have no mortgage and we are not going to sell after (forever home on family farm). Is there any need or requirement for structural warranty as they don't really seem worth it?

 

Many thanks 

 

 

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Nope, I don’t have one, it’s our forever (till they wheel me out in a box?) house but someone told me if we sold it a warranty would be required but I then found out an indemnity insurance is cheaper than a warranty and it can be taken out IF you decided to sell.

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We have one 

I posed the same question three years back 

and received the same answer from Russ

Should have listened

We have no borrowing on the house So didn’t have to have one 

I hate the term forever home as you never know what is around the corner 

 

My friend finished his forever home just as we started No SW

As it was his forever home

18 months later found another plot

even better than the FEH 

Buyers lender wanted a SW 

He bought one retrospectively

 

We had three ten minute visits in two years Complete waste of money   

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 07/10/2019 at 20:54, joe90 said:

Nope, I don’t have one, it’s our forever (till they wheel me out in a box?) house but someone told me if we sold it a warranty would be required but I then found out an indemnity insurance is cheaper than a warranty and it can be taken out IF you decided to sell.

Interested in this option. Anywhere I can find further info?

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44 minutes ago, eandg said:

Interested in this option. Anywhere I can find further info?

 

Here’s one such option but it all comes down to what your buyer’s lender will accept. They all have different rules 

 

https://gcs-title.co.uk/instant-issue/policies-glance/building-standards/

 

list for England and Wales 

 

https://www.cml.org.uk/lenders-handbook/englandandwales/question-list/1913/

 

 

 

 

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On 01/11/2019 at 14:13, newhome said:

 

Here’s one such option but it all comes down to what your buyer’s lender will accept. They all have different rules 

 

https://gcs-title.co.uk/instant-issue/policies-glance/building-standards/

 

list for England and Wales 

 

https://www.cml.org.uk/lenders-handbook/englandandwales/question-list/1913/

 

 

 

 

Thanks - I shall have a look. Does anyone who's built with a mortgage have any experience of then remortgaging without a structural warranty? Loath to spend £2.5k unnecessarily but it's a false economy if stuck on a self-build rate or thereabouts for a decade. 

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2 hours ago, eandg said:

Thanks - I shall have a look. Does anyone who's built with a mortgage have any experience of then remortgaging without a structural warranty? Loath to spend £2.5k unnecessarily but it's a false economy if stuck on a self-build rate or thereabouts for a decade. 

I have the same concern re. remortgaging so I took the decision to suck it up and pay £2500 for a warranty and BC.  Its easier to do now rather than realise you should have taken one out later on down the line?

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3 hours ago, eandg said:

Thanks - I shall have a look. Does anyone who's built with a mortgage have any experience of then remortgaging without a structural warranty? Loath to spend £2.5k unnecessarily but it's a false economy if stuck on a self-build rate or thereabouts for a decade. 

 

My self build mortgage transfers to a residential product upon completion, don't know if that is standard practise. 

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34 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

I have the same concern re. remortgaging so I took the decision to suck it up and pay £2500 for a warranty and BC.  Its easier to do now rather than realise you should have taken one out later on down the line?

 

It's a fair conundrum! 

 

9 minutes ago, Thedreamer said:

 

My self build mortgage transfers to a residential product upon completion, don't know if that is standard practise. 

 

It does with Ecology but you're still talking about 1%+ above what you'd get on the market. 

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  • 5 months later...

As an probably helpful note on this. 

 

Build store has told me all lenders will accept the architect certificate instead if a structural warranty. So if you have an architect and they are signing it off then that should save the 3k needed for a pointless structural warranty if you  need self build mortgage / residential while complete. 

 

Slight catch (theres always one) is that lender will send their own independent party to verify work has been completed also at 200 a pop. So 3-4 visit maybe. But its defo cheaper than structural warranty as far as I can see. 

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1 hour ago, SuperJohnG said:

Build store has told me all lenders will accept the architect certificate instead if a structural warranty.


Every lender has their own criteria. Not every lender will accept an architects’ certificate  
 

The current list for England and Wales is here 

 

https://www.cml.org.uk/lenders-handbook/englandandwales/question-list/1913/

 

 

 

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By reading this thread I think I have my answer but before I proceed with out structural warranty, am I ok doing this? There will not be a mortgage on the property and we don't plan on selling ever. Seems like a waste of 3k especially when  building control are essentially doing the same job?

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11 minutes ago, Olly P said:

By reading this thread I think I have my answer but before I proceed with out structural warranty, am I ok doing this? There will not be a mortgage on the property and we don't plan on selling ever. Seems like a waste of 3k especially when  building control are essentially doing the same job?

That’s right, no legal need for a warranty unless you sell or to satisfy a lender. 

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  • 1 month later...

Why are some posters saying it's a waste of money?

What if there was dodgy workmanship or a wall falls down, then you'd wish you would have insurance, no?

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37 minutes ago, newbuild20201 said:

Why are some posters saying it's a waste of money?

What if there was dodgy workmanship or a wall falls down, then you'd wish you would have insurance, no?

 

Reading the small print of our structural warranty the scope of what's covered is very limited, albeit the things that are covered are high impact. Moreover they seem very risk adverse during the construction process so the chances of something that's covered happening is very low. I guess there's an argument for this scrutiny having some value but it's mainly been a pain in the arse due to the poor communication between the private building inspectors (who are inspecting for building regs and the warranty company) and the people providing the assurance to the warranty provider.

 

If I didn't think I'd need a mortgage in the future that required it, I definitely wouldn't bother. 


Edited to say @Russell griffiths put it much more succinctly than my feeble effort! 

 

Edited by Andrew
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Just now, newbuild20201 said:

Thanks

Are building control from the council? How vigilant are they during the build?

The system in England (privatised) is different to Scotland (local authority) so you don't get any additional benefit here from the warranty (i.e. wrapping it up with building control) as you still need to pay your building warrant fees and get sign off from the council. 

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  • 4 months later...

I'm planning to borrow money from my current house to finish off the new build, when I get that far, don't hold your breath.

As my current house is 170 years old it never had any sort of warranty, in fact it doesn't even have foundations except for the extension, something that has never been asked for normal insurance.

 

As we are literally self building ourselves, block by block the conversion is going to take years.  Most of the warranty products I've looked at seem to quote for 1-2 years, the expected length of a standard build, so I wasn't going to bother due to the overall cost.  I've not looked at getting our insurance yet either as we are starting next year and the existing barn is in our field, but I realise that is essential.  So, is the insurance an annual premium.

 

It's also not clear about building regs inspections as it's a conversion, I spoke to the BC office, but they just said that they only need to inspect new stuff.

 

 

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  • 6 months later...
On 07/10/2019 at 20:08, gc100 said:

Hello there,

 

we have no mortgage and we are not going to sell after (forever home on family farm). Is there any need or requirement for structural warranty as they don't really seem worth it?

 

Many thanks 

 

 

Hello gc100.

 

If you have the right relationship with your SE then you can explore the option that is a little less formal in places. Ask them how much for say two site visits to confirm the structure is build as per the structural drawings. Here for example the SE will formally check the layout, spacing of main members, founds, connections and so on. But in doing so the SE also (should) look at all the other bits and give you a heads up.

 

What I am suggesting is not really recognised under many formal contract conditions that don't include full supervision (call this an old Clerk of works function) but it does work so long as the SE and the Client agree the boundaries of liability. I work on a lot of jobs say where someone wants to take down a couple of load bearing walls, they don't have the funds for a full managed and supervised contract but need a bit of help to deal with the builder. I would rather cast my eye over work just to make sure that it is safe. I take the view that best to do this as then you don't have to worry about a later failure where someone may be hurt.

 

Yes, what I have said may raise a few eyebrows but my PI insurance allows me to be flexible.. but sensible.

 

 

 

 

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