Six years ago we had a kitchen extension, planning permission etc granted, I remember the building inspector visiting whilst work was taking place, a friend of ours who was a structural engineer was dealing with all the plans and correspondence with the council. This friend passed away just as everything was being finished. We are now looking to move and I was looking through paperwork, it would appear that all the final work was never "signed off" I believe it's called.

I am now having nightmares that we find the perfect place and there is a problem due to the certificate or whatever they grant not being issued. I admit to being a bit worried about phoning the Council and admitting what has occured, does anyone know if there is a time limit as to how long after the work is complete they have to come and examine things?

We do have to have some work done on the drains as the builder did a bit of a botch job so I was going to get those done and then contact the Council, I was wondering if we could say the work has only just been completed because technically it has! I know that I can't ignore it as this would immmediately be discovered by the buyers solicitor.

Thanks

Ask your solicitor to take an insurance policy to cover this. We have it on our house afte planning and building regs were not done.

I think it cost about £100

Surely it was for building control to contact you when the job was finished? Certainly they should have contacted you by now as they would have needed to put their files in order?

When we had work done, the builder contacted building control who then called and arranged to come and do a final inspection.  Can't remember having a certificate for it though - but it was 20 years ago :-D

We have had this twice , on a porch and an attic conversion . The buyers solicitor sorted with our solicitor and it was easily sorted.

No it is up to you to let them know you have finished as they wouldn't know otherwise :-)

That phonecall or email to say it had been finished may not have happened or a chase up to remind them :-)

Thanks all, I will bite the bullet and phone the Council. Not having moved for so long I am out of touch with things and only discovered this when I was trying to put paperwork in order. Maybe I won't have the nightmare of finding the perfect house ( for the dogs!!) and then us loosing it. 

Don't ring the council just get the insurance sorted as it maybe opening a can of worms if you so :-)

The insurance policy will cover the new owners where as if you contact the council now and the decide it is too long since the work was done and will need remedial work which you will have to pay for .

> just get the insurance sorted as it maybe opening a can of worms if you so

From a buyer's perspective, I'm not sure that I would touch a house that hadn't had a completion certificate :) Yes, an insurance policy would cover the cost of any work that was needed, but I would prefer to know that work wouldn't be needed and building work had been completed properly first time - any future remedial work might be minor, but then again it might be major :) :)

Whatever you do they will pick it up on the Land Charge Search when the house is being sold, it's one of the steps - the search is sent to different parts of the council and Planning and Building Control are included, any planning and building applications/decisions and outstanding inspections are recorded ;)

This used to be part of my job.   Which came in very handy when our house purchase was held up "because the Land Charge Search hadn't been completed"   the look on the solicitor's face when I told him he was a liar was wonderful - I'd completed the search myself and sent it to him 6 months earlier :-D   (very long story )

We needed the insurance on an attic conversion that had been done without PP (not by us). No idea how our solicitor missed it years earlier.... Was no trouble to set up and we even split the cost with our buyer. Not quite sure how our solicitor pulled that one off....

Happens all the time !. We sold our house two years ago - only to discover via our purchasers solicitor that an extension we'd had eight years before hadn't been signed off. We didn't know it had to be - our builder had been dealing with everything so we thought all was ok. Anyway, quick call to the council and the chap was there in two days. He told us its really common and he deals with it all the time. He was there no more than 10 minutes and signed it off.

same recently happened to a friend when she split with her ex, and again a quick visit from the relevant bod and all dusted.