Never getting Building Control signoff.

[epsilonGreedy]

I am just exploring bureaucratic extremes here. Another recent thread highlighted that moving into a habitable house is a legitimate trigger for a VAT reclaim which has got me wondering what imperative remains to get past the final BC signoff once the VAT cash refund is in the bank?

 

The actual scenario that could apply to me is that in order to get a passing SAP score I might have to add PV to the house spec, yet in practice only one house in the village got approval for PV following a long planing struggle. If I moved into my 98% complete house, got the VAT refund and then waited up to 10 years for central Government to decree that PV is allowed in conservation areas what could go wrong?

[jack]

21 minutes ago, epsilonGreedy said:

I am just exploring bureaucratic extremes here. Another recent thread highlighted that moving into a habitable house is a legitimate trigger for a VAT reclaim which has got me wondering what imperative remains to get past the final BC signoff once the VAT cash refund is in the bank?

 

Insurance is likely to be more difficult - maybe even impossible?

[Mr Punter]

Also you would not get a structural warranty and therefore no mortgage and you could not resell.

[Ian]

@epsilonGreedy

Presuming there's no mortgage problems then the main issue is the lack of a building regs completion cert if you want to sell the house in the next 10 years.

[Bitpipe]

48 minutes ago, jack said:

 

Insurance is likely to be more difficult - maybe even impossible?

 

Yup - I think this is worth exploring. While I had buildings insurance during the completion period I was always slightly uneasy until I got the sign off.

[Ferdinand]

25 minutes ago, Bitpipe said:

 

Yup - I think this is worth exploring. While I had buildings insurance during the completion period I was always slightly uneasy until I got the sign off.

 

As a potential buyer, I would be OK with a non-signed off PP as it can be "Lawful Development Certificate"-d and is basically a paperwork thing; a non-signed off Building Regs completion would give me the willies - especially on a self-build, as it is about the quality.

And I would probably put you through more hoops than Building Control. By the time it was done you would feel like a performing sealion.

 

The concern would not be an indemnity policy, but rather that I would need to be satisfied that it was not going to go wrong in some fundamental way.

 

(Bonus para: One way of thinking about that is that for a buyer it leaves you with a newish house that has the "unknown" risks associated with an older house, reintroduced. You do not know what is there, and what might not be sound. That is assuming that BC completion is a decent measure of "sound")

 

So, more acceptable for a forever house, but your children might get annoyed later.

 

Ferdinand

 

 

Edited April 8, 2019 by Ferdinand

[newhome]

I did this, not because I couldn’t be bothered to finish but because I had a change of circumstances. The HMRC policy didn’t seem to have altered when I applied for my VAT refund so I had to wait to get the completion certificate that took several years. Money in their pocket, not mine. Main issue was insurance so I sourced a specific policy through a broker to cover this scenario (although they wouldn’t cover me for accidental damage). 

 

Also the warranty that I couldn’t get until I had the completion certificate. I wasn’t looking to sell however so it wasn’t a particular issue for me. I didn’t have a mortgage on the property so no issue there. 

 

OTOH my neighbours bought the house next door that a small developer had built and it wasn’t signed off (didn’t even have a temp habitation certificate). They didn’t know for 10 years (their solicitor cocked up) until I got my house signed off so had lived with standard insurance all that time. When they then had to get sign off they had to make changes to the property as they had made a few changes that didn’t comply with building regs. So that’s another issue, you need to keep your house building regs compliant until you request sign off. There is also a risk that the council could decide that as it had been so long you may need to be compliant with the building regs at the time (they don’t do this currently afaik but it’s a potential risk) so you may have to reverse engineer things that you don’t yet know about. 

[nod]

I’m holding back on the sign off As it is my end of year return and would like to get that out of the way first 

Hetas cert just needed to be submitted so that BC will sign off 

 

we’ve been living here since the begging of December with a standard home insurance 

They told us that sign off wasn’t important to them As long as all service had been certified and the inside was at least  three quarter complete 

 

Ive mentioned in a previous post that our original Sap included PV 

and a condition that we would exceed the minimum by 25% 

While the original sap company so this as a problem 

The online company said it wasn’t 

BC never mentioned it 

[newhome]

48 minutes ago, nod said:

I’m holding back on the sign off As it is my end of year return and would like to get that out of the way first 

Hetas cert just needed to be submitted so that BC will sign off 

 

 

Just be careful that you don’t fall foul of HMRC with their new interpretation of ‘complete’. If you can get in writing from BC that the Hetas certificate is required before sign off can be given that may help if you are challenged. 

[nod]

Thanks 

Yes I’ve had two emails from BC

Stating that all is well 

and that they have checkecked Hetas website and there is nothing showing and sign will be completed as soon as I have the cert or it appears on there website 

 

[epsilonGreedy]

Thanks all, a useful range of opinions. Living in a non signed off house for years is not a desired outcome, I was just assessing how difficult life would become if I took a gamble on featuring PV to solve my SAP challenge without planning consent for PV.

 

In my case there is no mortgage or warranty to worry about. The feedback on home insurance cover is promising, i.e. if it walks and quacks like a habitable home it is insurable.