Big Snag - Yes or No?

Mr E

I had my snag list done on a new property yesterday. I just spoke to the snagger to see what the story was. He said that there were a few small bits and pieces to do, but that there was one major snag....

Apparently the downstairs loo (which is under the stairs) must be wheelchair accessible by law. It definitely is not wheelchair accessible.

I spoke to the site foreman, and he was surprised by this. He says out of all the houses he has done in the estate (easily 40+) and all the houses the same size as mine (15-ish), this is the first time that this has come up.

Snagger reckons this could be BIG trouble for the construction company.

Who is right?

Technically your snagger is right, but I have lost count of the number of times engineers have snagged buildings and pointed out that technically they don't comply with building regulations but adopt a 'sure what are you gonna do about it anyway' attitude. Personally I wouldn't get too worked up, most houses don't meet all the stict requirements. Another famous one is windows, I have seen whole estates go up with windows that don't meet fire regulations but people will still go ahead and buy them and it wouldn't cross their minds to get too upset about the finer points.

Lex Luthor

I'd have to agree with Conor...I took posession of a house about 14 months ago. The downstairs loo was no way wheelchair accessible either. If it was I'd probably have a hall the size of a shoe box.

Victor

Yup, snagger is correct. Foreman is in denial / lieing.

It is just possible that the houses are being built on an old planning permission, but I strongly doubt it.

Mr E

Its a new estate. The law was created in 2000. No way is it 6 year old planning permission....

VroomVroom

I have a downstairs toilet too, house built in 2004, was told by snagger (mate) that toilet has to be wheelchair accessible. Even the way that the door to the toilet is positioned in a narrow enough hallway would make this virtually impossible.

To be honest, I went with the "Feck it, whatya gonna do" attitute. Was sick of estate agents, builders, banks, all of them by that stage and it wasn't a big concern for me.

muffler

The issue of ground floor, wheelchair accessible wc's is contained in Part M of the Building Regs. There was a transitional period that went something like - if planning permission was granted prior to jan. 1 2002 and works commenced prior to Jan. 1 2003 then the houses would have been exempted from this requirement.

Im not 100% sure but I think that this particular regulation applies to all houses commenced after either Jan. 2003 or Jan. 2004 regardless of when planning permission was granted.

Its a common enough problem for an issue like this to arise. Its probably because the person doing the snagging is on his first job in that particular estate. Most likely one or 2 other guys done the snagging on the rest and ignored the matter of the WC.

I shouldnt say this but "go with the crowd"

Edit: Just had a quick search and you will find all you need to know here

fintan

Could you negoiate a discount for not causing a fuss?

oneillk

If your ground floor area is 45m2 or less, then the size of your wc downstairs can be reduced.
In normal circumstances, the wc should be big enough so that a clear space of 1200x750mm can be facilitated to cater for a wheel chair inside the room with the door closed.
If your ground floor is less than 45m2, then this 1200x750 space can be achieved by using the space outside the wc aswell as inside,
ie if the door is left open to the wc, there should be enough space for this rectangle area. This gretaly reduces the necessary size of the wc.

So, i wouldnt be so sure that it does not meet the requirements!

Mr E

Snap...

I just found that out this morning, oneillk.
I'm trying to find out the downstairs area. The house is 959 square feet. Downstairs would roughly be 479.5 square feet, which is 44.54 square meters.

I need exact numbers of floor area, but I think I'm just under the 45 square meters (by centimeters!).