A Guide To Building Alterations

Practical Guides

An overview of the basics.

Property Alterations BENEFIT OR DEAL BREAKER?

ALL IN THE DETAIL Alterations to your property should have both a financial and living standards benefit. Yet what started as a grant plan can be a deal breaker when it comes to selling or even refinancing the property.

The fundamental issue surrounds the issue of having ALL the correct paper work in place to show that the works done were done will all approvals in place. Having say, 9 out of 10 of the deeds if not enough. You may be happy with the documents, the builder and have lived with the alterations for years yet this is not enough. Any UK lender will insist that before they provide any money to buy or remortgage any property the deeds must be in place. This is a non negotiating position set down by lenders under their unified Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) Rules. You can imagine that if your potential purchaser cannot get a loan over your property they it will have limited value. To compound this there may be alterations to the property which predate your ownership and are out with your knowledge.

The easiest way to check all is well is to examine any survey or home report your valuer will be using to sell your property. Check that you have in place all the documents to cover any works they highlight, and if in doubt let us help you piece the documents together before any issue arises.