Buying a house - No certificate of compliance with building regulations

Your post isn't clear. Has your solicitor been told that there is no cert available?

A house built in 2009 absolutely should have one and if not, I'd be concerned. I wouldn't buy it.

If you’re planning on getting a mortgage to buy, this could well be a blocking issue.

You can get a certificate of substantial compliance (or rather the seller should) for about 500e assuming no issues. Will delay sale but not scupper altogether

You could also retain one of the following to carry out the Survey of the house and provide the Certificate of Compliance (CofC) with the Building Regulations and Planning Permission:-

1. Chartered Building Surveyor
2. Registered Building Surveyor
3. Chartered Building Engineer.

A Construction Professional should have been retained to carry out inspections of the building during construction and provided the C of C.

These Professionals could also carry out a Survey of the existing property and furnish you with á Home Buyers Structural Survey of the Property, and a Survey of the Boundaries of the Site to ensure that the boundaries on the ground conform to the boundaries on the Deed / Land Register Map etc.

Your Solicitor is obliged to instruct you to have a Survey carried out on the property before you complete the Purchase.

They cant and thats why your solicitor is looking for the original certification if it exists or indeed ever existed.

If no certs were ever furnished then the best you can get is a cert that will be heavily qualified and issued on foot of a "visual, walk through survey"

It probably should exist but as i said earlier not every house that was built in this country since building regs came into force in the early 90's has certification. The most common reason for this is just like your current set up where there is or was no mortgage involved. I have encountered houses in the past that had no planning permission never mind complying with building regs.

But you would need to ask the original owner about what he got or didnt get. I think this brings us full circle in this thread. You say your solicitor is struggling to get the certification so if the owner has it then why not provide it?

It is very common that such a cert won't exist from original build.

Certs of compliance with planning and building regs are being completed retrospectively all over the country everyday.

A professional will be able to pretty solidly certify planning compliance from a site visit.

Building reg certification will be limited to visual aspects of the regs and should clearly note that hidden or covered up items were not checked and are not being certified.

Banks are happy with these certs generally.

I would advise that the structural survey becomes super important in this scenario.

Getting this certification retrospectively will involve Engineer having to dig out details of planning file and land registry and then doing the Inspection on site. Personally, when doing these myself, I for the most part put the same detail into the Inspection as if doing structural survey. If suspicious of any defects found, I refuse the work to avoid any future possible liability even though the cert would be heavily qualified to exclude x y z.

And who is to blame for that???

If there is any misapprehension about PI Insurance, why bother hiring anyone who is covered with it.

It is very common that such a cert won't exist from original build

For a house built in 2009??

Tbe. Building Regulations became operational on 1 June 1992.

All new houses constructed after that date required a Certificate of Opinion on Compliance with the Building Regulations.

Yes even for a house built in 2009, it is still common for one off houses not to have any certification. The system was driven by funding. If you could afford to self fund your one off house, nobody was going to come looking for a cert.

Of course those houses that were self funded were very often built in a manner that didn't comply with planning also so very often a planning application is required to get things sorted out.

Yes, that is my understanding.

Because firstly some would have bought off plans and just took what they got.

People who bought in later may have had a survey however the survey will exclude hidden or inaccessible items. A surveyor isn't a magician to be able to inspect closed up areas. Now if there were defects with visible items, they should be picked up in a survey.

Much of the fire issues would relate to lack of cavity barriers etc which is very much hidden work.

The people who signed off on these projects day one are the people with questions to answer.

Your understanding is incorrect.

The simple law of Negligence is as follows:-

1. Does the Construction Professional (CP) owe a duty of care to the Client?
2. Was the duty of care breached?
3. How much €€ is the Client entitled to in damages.

Legal action Must commence within 6 years of the Negligence.

If a CP carried out Professional Services for a Client, say a home buyers Structural Survey Report of a house, and the Client purchases the house, and subsequently discovers subsidence in the house which will cost €150,000 to rectify. The Client is entitled to recover all of the costs from the CP’s Professional Indemnity Insurance Company.

Litigation must commence within 6 Years.

Solicitors usually request CP’s to furnish the Solicitor with a copy of the CP’s P.I. Insurance, together with a copy of the Survey Report.

CP usually have P I Insurance cover for approximately €650,000.

The builder cut the corners, but the surveyor was there to find the cut corners and protect their clients, which clearly didn't happen. What's the point of a survey if they can't be on the hook for getting the cut corners resolved?

Yes.

I have read many of the cases, which were reported in the various Construction Professionals Institutions magazines.

Many of these claims caused the Costs of Premiums for CP Professional Indemnity Insurance to escalate.

As well as the architects / engineers who cut corners with poor or no oversight.

An inspection at any stage of the construction of the external facade would have shown up a complete lack of cavity barriers.

You posed the following question above:-

If the Surveyor cannot see or diagnose any signs of Substance in a house which is subsidising, then they should not be carrying out Building Surveys, and will be Negligent.

it is easy for an experienced Construction Professional (CP) to ascertain if a property is subsiding. Any movement in the foundations would be visible in the form of cracks. 

There are many causes of cracks in buildings, some are very serious and some are irrelevant. It is necessary for a CP to make a diagnosis the cause of the cracks.

Firstly the CP must carry out a visual inspection of all the external and internal walls for Structural Cracking in the walls. Movements in the foundations usually cause Cracking at the weakest area of the walls which are around the door /window opes. 

The ceilings in each room consist of a 3 mm layer of gypsum plaster on plasterboard, which is very brittle and which is contained within a parallelogram of 4 walls. Any structural movement in the foundations would cause some distortion/ movement in the parallelogram of the 4 walls which will result in the form of cracking in both directions in these ceilings, usually along the joints of the plasterboards of the ceiling.

The CP will check all internal doors and frames and door opes, because any movement in the foundations may cause rotation at the weakest part of a walls which are door opes, which will result in marks on the doors or frames or saddles.

There are many more methods which the CP will check for subsidence.

A Surveyor must check the drains for leaks by plugging the downstream outlets of all the drains, and filling up the drainage system to ground level with water. Photograph and mark the height level of the water in the highest manholes upstream. And check the level of the water in the manholes at intervals for at least 1 hour. If the drains are leaking - depending on the rate of the leak, the Surveyor will Specify in the Survey Report that a CCTV and a Hydrostatic test of all the drainage systems must be carried out, and that the test results MUST be given to the Surveyor for analysis before deciding to purchase the property.

Most subsidence of foundation are caused by leaking Drains adjacent to the foundations.

This is why the Purchaser should retain a CP to carry out a Survey of the Building and Site before completing the purchase.

All Architects and Civil Engineers and Building Surveyors carrying out Surveys of buildings would be experts in all of the above, and may have covered it in their Degree in the Building Surveying modules.

In Reality, then the house should be covered by the 10 year Structural Guarantee and the CP who prepared the Certificate of Compliance with the Build Regulations and Planning for the new house.