attic conversion not certified

Virtually no solicitor is going to tell their clients to buy a house with an uncertified attic conversion - so the mortgageability is not the sole problem here.

I know somebody with a converted attic with en suite which is used as a bedroom. Just got a new mortgage on it. The surveyor did report to the bank that the attic area appeared to be used as a bedroom so she told bank she was using it as a walk in wardrobe and that was the end of it.

I was a buyer in a similar situation. The original owner converted the attic but ours will never be compliant with regs because the ceiling height is too low. He just removed all the furniture and had his engineer certify that it was an exempt storage space. That was good enough for our solicitor and the bank, and the sale went through with no issue.

I just got my attic converted on my new build. It’s sufficient height 2.4m and size to get certified if I liked. However, 95% don’t bother as all doors in the house would need to be changed to fire doors. The attic door is a fire door. There would also need to be an escape window low down which would be dangerous for a child.

Getting a mortgage is not an issue, as most people just claim it’s an extra living room. Technically it can’t be advertised as a bedroom until it’s certified. It would only be an issue for a landlord if they claimed the attic was a bedroom and telling tenants they could sleep there. The vast majority it’s their family home.

Short answer is yes, the surveyor can claim non-compliance regardless of the advertisement. The surveyor is getting paid either way and their insurance is on the line if it comes back on them. So a nod/wink arrangement is not in their interests.

At the end of the day, the surveyor is not really concerned with what has been advertised, just what exists in the property. After all, you could put up a building in your back garden with a kitchenette, a toilet and a bed and claim it's just a fancy shed, but in reality it may be another habitable space, which requires planning permission.

I would say with near-certainty that the ensuite is what has tripped you up. A cheaper alternative to getting it fully certified may be to pull out the ensuite (bear with me). Remove the furniture, put it in the opposite corner, cap off the drains and the pipes, et voila! If the new owners wish to refit the bathroom, they can fire away.

No surveyor, orthodox or not, is going to ignore uncertified rooms in an attic.

These type of properties are sold with a cert for a storage area and with the number of bedrooms in the original build.

You'd be some moron of a surveyor to do any different. Any fire would see you in the high court and uninsurable.

Because it's not really about what it is currently being used for. I refer to the shed example. You could build a whole granny flat in the back garden, fitted kitchen, toilet, couches and bed, but claim that you're only using it for storage. And that may actually be true, but the fact that it has been adapted as a habitable space means it needs to be compliant.

Stairs up to an attic space, nice floor, velux windows, that's a fancy storage space. Radiators.....ehh, OK you want to keep out the damp. Toilet....now you've got a habitable space.

Yes, it is all a bit opinion-based, but at the end of the day an attic with an ensuite is no longer storage space. At the very least it is being used as an extra bathroom, which means that it now forms part of the living space of the house. And therefore must be compliant.

You'll even get away with have a desk with computers set up and a few sockets. That's just how they're being stored. But there's no way around having a jacks up there, and presumably a shower too. You don't have these facilities in a storage space.

While it sounds ridiculous that removing the toilet furniture would suddenly make it not a living space, you can see that it does. Now it's just a storage space with the potential to be converted to habitable space. Once sold, it becomes the buyers' decision.

That really comes down to the buyers' bank. The solicitor will advise against purchasing a house without the proper certs, but they can't block the sale. If someone really wants the house they will often purchase in spite of the solicitor's advice. Only the bank can block the sale by refusing the mortgage if they're not happy.

You have a funny attitude to this surveyor.

Zealot, orthodox, etc.

He's asked to survey a building. It's got non-compliant rooms and no cert of compliance. He's put it in his report. It's up to the purchaser to direct his solicitor to ignore or that he will accept a cert of compliance as a store room.

The surveyor isn't the one who has to take a risk or ignore the elephant in the room. That's for the purchaser to do.

Arguably it is a "bureaucratic pantomime", but more because people are taking the piss than anything else. Lots of houses being sold with "attic upgrades" that are clearly being used as living space but classed as storage space. Which is why surveyors have to draw a line somewhere. In reality any attic space with fixed access, floors, walls and a ceiling should be classed as habitable space and subject to the regs. Would make cases like the OP's much cleaner and clearer.

There's not really any argument here anyway - the space is being used for living in. It's not storage space, so the OP is not being hard done by. The space should either be brought up to compliance, or downgraded to storage space.

The regs aren't there for the craic. Some - like ceiling height - are not essential, but fire safety upgrades are.

The bank care about the quality of their security. Therfe is valuation and marketability. Selling a house which is non compliant with planning permission and building regulations is less straightforward than selling a house which is compliant. The house cannot be sold without the attic. You can't cure a problem be description. You bought the house as a 4 bed without checking and now think some eejit will appear and buy it as a three bed without checking. Dream on.

I get the sense this is all being confounded by attempts to do a three-way sale/purchase.

If your buyer really wanted to get their act together and purchase your house they'd be saying that it'll be used for storage. They could have this solved very quickly by engaging with another surveyor to get it across the line.

I would just make it their problem or else put it back on market, no shortage of buyers out there.

Trying to suit an arrangement with only one prospective buyer is heading for a headache.

If it's the ensuite that's the issue then just board it off, or stick a wardrobe in front of the door.

The engineer's advice impacts his livelihood. If he tells you to fire ahead on the existing joists and five years later the house has significant structural damage because you decided a cast-iron bath would be a good idea up there, then he's in trouble. Even if you tell him that you only want to use it as a playroom, your word is no use to his insurance company.

The builder knows that he's just going to stick a bed up there and a few bits and not overload the ceiling joists. If he sells the house and the next guy decides to stick 1000kg of gym equipment up there, there's no comeback on the builder.

The purpose of the regulations really is safety; to ensure that changes made to a house don't put any of the occupants at risk through the entire lifetime of it. The guy who first builds it may know exactly what's been done and what the limits are, but the next guy to buy it, doesn't. If it meets regulations, then nobody needs to know how the work was done, just that it's up to spec.