Can our conservatory become a selling sore point

[Wychburygirl]

I wonder if any one can advise me. Our conservatory is 5 years old. It was deemed exempt from planning permission as it does not exceed any of the stated regulations. However, during the build we had to sack the builders before the conservatory was completed,due to very bad customer service and not sticking to an agreed building schedule. We hand no concerns over the actual quality of the build itself. The company has since dissolved.

We did ask another conservatory firm to come in and asses what else was needed to be done. Their work consisted of a couple of days at the most and ensured that the building adhered to structural regulations and being fit for purpose. However, as they did not originally start the build we were not given a guarantee.

We have never had to carry out a single repair within these last 5 years What, if any, affect will this have on potential buyers to our home.

Many thanks for your thoughts and ideas.

[tridentmorph]

Hi, I would say that it will certainly crop up in the enquiries that will be raised with your solicitor by the buyers solicitor. These things do happen quite commonly (particularly with firms going bankrupt etc) and as long as all the regulations were taken into account, as they were in this case, then the most likely thing you will need to do will be take out an indemnity policy. An indemnity policy is basically an insurance policy that specifically deals with any potential problem with regards to the planning, design etc.

Your solicitor will be able to organise one if needed and would almost certainly be under £100.

Whether it becomes an issue will depend on what your buyers and their solicitors are like, very careful or a bit more "relaxed". At the early stages buyers generally just go "oh good a conservatory" and don't go too much into the nuts and blots of these things.

[prestige]

I had a friend who had something similar some years back and I'm sure he got someone to come and inspect the conservatory and provide a certificate (for a price) which was like a guarantee from them that it was built to good standard.

I don't think it was a legal guarantee but it gave the buyers peace of mind to know it had been checked out.

[Dan_Manchester]

I think you'd be hard pushed to find any builder that would guarantee anyone elses work to be honest. Any decent builder will not want their name attached to something which isn't theirs (I would imagine).

When you're selling the would most potential buyers not be happy with a structural survey perhaps, which they, the buyer would pay for if they weren't happy with your story?

[Richard Webster]

Guarantees are not some magic panacea for all ills!

If there was a guarantee for a conservatory I wouldn't advise my clients to take too much notice of it - builders are going out of business all the time and if they don't want to do the work it will cost more to sue them on the gauarantee than getting someone else to do it!

Buyers should be happy that there is a conservastrory regardless of guarantees.