Change of use from garage to kitchen - construction query?

Question

We bought a house 8 years ago where the garage was changed to a kitchen about a year before we bought it. We bought the house without a problem, but as we're coming to sell it now we're told that a mortgage lender wouldn't lend on it? It's single skin brick with a pitched, tiled roof. Were the building regs different back then?

Serious amounts of help required...!

Answer 1

Ok a bit more info, If your garage is an internal garage, that is to say it built into your house then when you change the use of it from a garage to a Kitchen you don't need planning permission, at least you didn't 8 years ago and I don't think that has changed. If however your garage is on the side of your house as an edition to the house then you may require planning permission, although I would say not. Planning permission is generally required if your changing the size of the area by extending the building - up - down - in or out.

However on all occasions you will need Building control approval. This will cover the fabric of the building, for example if you make a window bigger or smaller is the steel above the right steel. Where the garage door was are the footings deep enough for you to build a wall at that point.

As this was a garage (separate from your property) Are the footing deep enough.

Also required as part of the Regs are insulation, floor, walls and ceiling. To gain the required amount of thermal insulation in a home it is required that you have an internal skin followed by a cavity insulation followed by an external skin to the walls.

The concrete floor in a dwelling is now required to have an insulation layer in it to prevent heat loss through the floor.

Loft insulation again is required. Also depending on the amount of glass in the building will have an effect on how much insulation you need?

The building Regs as far as these items are concerned have not changed in the time you have been at this property.

From what I can see you have these choices:

1. You gut and remodel your kitchen with the approval of building Regs.

2. You turn your kitchen back into a garage.

3. Hope that the next person that comes along get a mortgage on the property.

4. Stay where you are and don't move.

5. I doubt you will be able to do this but sue the people you bought the house off.

My answer to you other quest is below:

The building code has not changed as far as a single skin extension is concerned. It has always been a requirement of building Regs for you to have a double skin generally internal block work external brickwork. The Regs do change over the years and a cavity insulation is required now.

How ever the problem you have is one that came into play around 2003, when the rules changed around the procedure of selling and buying property. Elements of the construction was then and still is now inspected by a surveyor on behalf of the mortgage company. If they where happy whit what the surveyor said then you got your mortgage regardless of the odd discrepancy such as your problem. Today though any element picked on survey has to be quantified with a certificate or an insurance payment to cover any problems in the future with that area of the property.

This is because the solicitors or Bank who are involved with the purchase or sale can be liable if something like this comes up in the future.

Don't know all your circumstances but you get the picture.

Answer 2

Did you buy the house "As Is"?

Did you buy it with a Realtor?

Was an inspection done?

Are you selling with a Realtor?

I need to know these questions, email me if you like.

Answer 3

Building regs are different all over the country, and even from county to county.  They change all the time but I'm not sure that is what your problem is.  Did you have a house inspection done when you bought the house?  Things that make a house non sellable  at a later date is usually discovered by the pre buy inspection.  It doesn't make sense that lender wouldn't make a loan on it if the remodel was done properly.  A building permit should have been issued, check with the county to see if blueprints were registered and approved and then the building permit would have been issued.  It would be in the county assessors records, I think.