[Karen]

Hi hoping someone can offer a bit of advice...

We're currently having an extension done, first floor extension on top of an existing ground floor extension. We bought the house with the ground floor extension having been completed by the previous owner and signed off by building control in 2006. The ground floor extension was a kitchen diner off the living room which meant knocking through the external wall of the living room in to the new kitchen.

We have just put 2 bedrooms on top. Building control asked our builder to expose the rsj in the doorway from the living room to kitchen to demonstrate it is sufficient to take the new load. There is no rsj or concrete lintel.

Above the doorway on the 'external' skin was a layer of bricks, on the 'internal' skin of the wall are two planks of wood above the door. Either side of the door is plaster board and nothing supporting the wall above.

Would this have complied with building regs in 2006? If not who is responsible now the issue has been discovered?

We have photos

Thanks

[Matthew]

This sounds terrible. I cannot believe that it would have passed Building Regs in 2006 or before.

You can't blame your surveyor as he could not have seen it. You probably have no recourse to the vendor either, as Building Control signed it off. You'll be lucky to get anywhere with Building Control although they should be pretty embarrassed by it. I would think you either bite the bullet and sort it, or else get some legal advice