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When you have any type of structural work done at your house, flat or other residential property, you may need to obtain a completion certificate. This document is issued by a qualified inspector and says that the work meets the latest building regulations. Not having this certificate can make selling your home more difficult, but getting a fair and fast offer is still achievable.
- What is a completion certificate for a house or flat?
- Why it can be harder to sell a property lacking a completion certificate
- Mortgage lenders may be wary of a home without a completion certificate
- Do you have to tell buyers about not having a completion certificate?
- Possible solutions when selling a home without a completion certificate
- Your options to sell a flat or house lacking a completion certificate
- Top queries about selling a property without a completion certificate
What is a completion certificate for a house or flat?
Selling a home can often involve an extensive amount of paperwork, and one document that could play an important role in how fast you’re able to sell is a completion certificate.
A completion certificate is often an important document needed when trying to sell a property, because it shows that any work done at the home complies with building regulations. Work refers to structural, physical changes to the property, from upgrading a kitchen to replacing a roof and more.
These certificates are issued following an inspection in England and Wales by your council’s Local Authority Building Control (LABC) division, or by an LABC-approved inspector. In the regular process of obtaining a completion certificate, an inspector would visit a property and then inspect the work and related elements of the home to see if it meets regulations.
Some of the many different factors that an inspector will assess can include:
- Roof structure
- Floors and the ground
- Stability of the structure
- Ventilation
- Thermal insulation
- Damp proofing
- Fire protection
- Drainage
Should the inspector determine that all of the work complies with the latest building regulations, they will then issue a compliance certificate that you as the seller can use to show buyers, to reassure them that the property is in full compliance and has no apparent risks.
But what happens if you don’t have a completion certificate? Keep reading to learn about how this might create some additional barriers to attracting buyers to your property, but also to get advice on how it may still be possible to sell the home for a competitive and quick offer.
Why it can be harder to sell a property lacking a completion certificate
Completion certificates provide evidence from a qualified surveyor that a house or flat, and work done, meets building regulations, as the LABC notes.
For this reason, they can often be reassuring to potential buyers who want to know that the home they are thinking of purchasing is structurally sound, and that work done on the property in the past will not create dangers and liabilities for them as the next owner.
If you do not have a completion certificate in place and a buyer asks you about this, you must tell them and this can be enough to make them lose interest in the property. One of their biggest concerns will likely be that the work done falls short of what is required by building regulations and therefore it could be unsafe, creating structural and safety risks for them as the new owner.
Another major concern that a prospective buyer could have is about facing potential enforcement action once they own the home. If the local authority discovers that the house or flat does not have a completion certificate then it could pursue such an action against the new owner and order corrective steps to be taken, which could become very expensive.
Even the threat of such an enforcement action, however small that might be, can be enough to deter some people from wanting to make an offer for buying your property.
Mortgage lenders may be wary of a home without a completion certificate
As well as the explanations in the prior section about the hurdles involved with selling a home that lacks a completion certificate, mortgages can be another potential barrier to a sale.
If a buyer asks a mortgage provider to give them a loan to purchase your property, the company will almost always ask for proof of a completion certificate, as the HomeOwners Alliance says.
That’s because the lender will want to know that the home is structurally sound and could be resold in the future. If a buyer gets a loan but then defaults on it later, the provider can move to repossess the property and resell it, using the proceeds to recoup the remaining mortgage debt. But if there is no completion certificate, the company could have concerns that the home has major structural problems that would make it very hard to sell it in such a scenario.
The lender would then likely reject the buyer’s mortgage application, eliminating this as one way to sell your house or flat. But, as you’ll see further on in this guide, you still have strategies for selling the property, including by doing so with a zero-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties.
Do you have to tell buyers about not having a completion certificate?
Given the hurdles that owners can face when trying to sell a flat or house without a completion certificate, you might be wondering whether you can simply keep this fact to yourself, which would mean that buyers could be unaware of it and therefore make an offer.
It’s important that you disclose the lack of a completion certificate, as noted by the website Completely Moved. You have a legal duty as part of the conveyancing process to provide as much information as possible and to be honest about what you disclose.
Never try to conceal the fact that you do not have a completion certificate, or to withhold details about any work that you have had done to the property. If someone ends up buying your property and then discovers these issues after the fact, they could sue you and the case may end in up a very lengthy and expensive court case, with penalties for you should you lose.
Should you be nervous about being unable to attract buyers to your home because of the lack of a completion certificate, don’t worry because you still have ways to sell it.
One such solution is to get in contact with a quick home buying company such as LDN Properties because they will still give you a fast and fair offer for the home, regardless of the lack of a completion certificate or any other problems that it might have.
As you’ll see in a later section of this guide, selling to a quick buyer has a number of perks, including not having to pay any commission and being able to complete the entire process within a few short weeks, and that covers exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds.
Possible solutions when selling a home without a completion certificate
Beyond the option of getting in touch with a quick buyer when selling a home without a completion certificate, there are a couple of other potential solutions that you can consider, which include buying indemnity insurance or trying to get a regularisation certificate.
Neither of these approaches is required, however, and the costs and time that might be involved could make them not workable for owners who are looking to sell fast or keep their expenses low, in which case getting in touch with a quick buyer may remain your best option.
Indemnity insurance
If you own a property that does not have a completion certificate but you are looking to sell it, one step that you may want to consider taking is purchasing indemnity insurance.
An indemnity insurance policy could provide important protection against any financial or legal problems that might arise in the future at your home after you have sold it, as the website Net Lawman says. But there are certain limitations to using this as a solution for your situation.
The cost of an indemnity insurance will vary based on the value of your property but you can expect it to cost least £175 or more for a home that has a sale price of £500,000.
But it’s important to know that this insurance policy would only protect you against the costs resulting from an enforcement action by the LABC due to the lack of a completion certificate of the home, and you could still be liable for costs associated with future work at the property.
Regularisation certificate
Another way to resolve the problem of not having a completion certificate at your flat or house is to approach the local authority and ask them to issue a regularisation certificate – a document that essentially states that the work done at the property does meet building regulations.
There are some advantages of pursuing this solution instead of getting an indemnity insurance policy, including that many mortgage providers will usually consider a regularisation certificate to be sufficient proof of the property’s integrity. This would eliminate the possible barrier to some buyers who may not otherwise able to get a mortgage to afford buying your home.
If the relevant work was done at your property in recent years but you do not have a completion certificate, it does not automatically mean that it violates building regulations. Instead, this scenario just means that the right procedural steps weren’t taken when the work was done.
You can apply for a regularisation certificate within a certain deadline that will differ based on what the local authority sets, but usually within 10 to 15 years of the original work being done.
Your options to sell a flat or house lacking a completion certificate
One of the most important final decisions that you will need to resolve as part of the selling process is selecting the strategy that you would like to use in order to find a buyer.
The usual choices for selling a home are with an auctioneer, via an estate agent, on your own, or to a quick property buyer like LDN Properties. Some options have clear downsides, like having to pay commission when you opt for selling through an auction or with an estate agent. And others have upsides, like selling within weeks when you contact a quick buyer.
You should take time to review the details of all four selling options below and then compare this information against your main goals with the sale, such as how fast you want to find a buyer, whether you are open to paying any commission, and your preferred sale price. Doing this should assist you in narrowing down the choices to the best match for your situation.
Selling at a property auction
Selling your home at an auction is a gamble because it might get no bids, in which case it goes unsold. You’d then have to start over with seeking a buyer, delaying a final sale by much more time.
Or you might just get one bid at the reserve price, which is the lowest price at which you agree your property can sell. A bid at this value is a binding legal agreement to sell your property and the buyer can sue to enforce the sale in case you try to abandon it after the auction. That’s why you need to calculate a reserve price that should produce a profit from the sale.
As you work out your ideal reserve price, consider that the average auctioneer will charge commission at 2.5 percent of your home’s sale price, although the exact rate may be higher or lower. This fee adds to your costs because it is immediately taken out of the sale proceeds.
The commission that you will be charged pays for the auctioneer’s work in creating and advertising a listing that features photographs of your property and describes it main features, hosting the auction and also overseeing the final stages of a successful auction.
Selling this way not the quickest choice because there is a fair amount of waiting involved, such as many weeks or even months between the day that you decide to sell this way and the day on which the auction occurs. And if your home manages to sell, the buyer than has an average of 28 days to sign all the legal papers and finish their other tasks needed to complete the sale.
Selling with an estate agent
Similar to auctioneers, estate agents also do the vast majority of the work involved with finding a buyer, including developing a listing, advertising it, organising viewings where people can tour your home, hearing offers and ideally getting one through to the exchange of contracts.
For putting in all of this effort, the average estate agent will charge you commission anywhere in a range between 1.15 percent and 1.40 percent of your property’s final sale price. This cost adds to your overall expenses, and the fee will be subtracted right away from the sale proceeds. If you to avoid fees when selling you should think of using a zero-commission option.
Selling with an estate agent can also be quite a slow process, possibly taking many months or more than an entire year before getting a serious offer. Even then, someone can make an offer but later change their mind and rescind it, making the sale collapse. The person that made the offer can do this without penalty if contracts aren’t exchanged yet. This would add much more time to your selling schedule because you will need to begin again with looking for a buyer.
Remember also that, as described earlier in this guide, mortgage providers might be unwilling to approve a loan for a property that does not have a completion certificate – and many private buyers who need a mortgage before they can purchase a home will use the traditional method of an estate agent to find their dream property. The lack of a completion certificate at your house or flat could therefore significantly reduce the number of potential buyers when selling this way.
Selling without any help
If you are trying to reduce your expenses when selling your home without a completion certificate then you may want to think about doing so without any third-party help from an auctioneer or an estate agent. Selling on your own means you have to handle all the work needed to find a buyer, but it also means you won’t need to pay any commission when selling.
But this can nevertheless be a very stressful way to sell your property, as you will need to do everything – create a listing, advertise it, schedule viewings and hear offers. This can easily take up a lot of time and you may find that it takes more than a year before you are able to sell. And even then someone can make an offer but later rescind it, making the sale collapse.
And it may be more difficult to get buyers interested because your home lacks a compliance certificate, as explained throughout this guide. For that reason, this approach to selling is only usually suggested for those owners who have in the past managed to sell a home without a compliance certificate, or who have a suitably experienced family member or friend that is open to helping them with the steps involved with the selling the home at no charge.
Even if you are able to sell your property without any help, you might also find that the benefit of avoiding commission and reducing costs is still cancelled out by the funds that you would need to spend on promoting your listing and the various other steps involved with selling your home.
Selling to a quick property buyer
Finally, you could think about selling your home to LDN Properties or another honest quick home buyer. These companies have the funds available upfront to buy all types of properties, without having to wait weeks or months to get a mortgage first, so the overall schedule is much swifter.
Generally, you can expect the total timeline when selling to a quick buyer to be just a few short weeks, and that includes the vital steps of exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds. For those owners looking to sell as fast as feasible, quick buyers are often the ideal choice.
In addition to the fast timeline, legitimate quick buyers also will never charge sellers any commission, which means that they can count on receiving the complete sale proceeds. That contrasts with the options of selling with an estate agent or an auctioneer, where you will need to pay fees that will add to your expenses because they are taken out of the final proceeds.
Quick buyers are also an excellent choice for selling a home without a completion certificate or any other scenario that might make some buyers view it as a “problem” property, as they make fair and fast offers no matter a home’s age, condition, location, shape, size or type.
Top queries about selling a property without a completion certificate
Here you can find LDN Properties’ answers to some of the most frequently asked questions we get from owners about sell a home that does not have a completion certificate:
Your top questions when selling without a completion certificate
Completion certificates are issued by local authorities from qualified Local Authority Building Control (LABC) inspectors, or surveyors approved by the LABC. These certificates demonstrate that structural work done at your property complies with building regulations. Many buyers and mortgage lenders are likely to ask whether your property has a completion certificate.
There are a few reasons why you might find it more challenging to attract buyers to your property if it does not have a completion certificate. One of the biggest concerns that someone could have is that the work may be unsafe and cause problems in the future, and another fear a buyer could have is being subject to an enforcement action from the local authority.
It can be very difficult for someone to get approved for a mortgage to purchase a property that does not have a completion certificate. That’s because lenders will have concerns about whether the work done at a home meets building regulations, which could make it harder for the company to resell it in the future if necessary should the buyer default on the loan repayments.
Yes, by law you must answer honestly during conveyancing process when you’ll be asked to provide a large amount of information about your house or flat. If you withhold details about work done and the lack of a completion certificate and manage to sell your home, the buyer can sue you for penalties should they find out about what you withhold once they own the property.
There are a few different approaches that you can take to resolve this issue, and one of these would be purchasing indemnity insurance to cover against any problems that arise with the home after you sell it. Another fix could be getting a regularisation certificate that would confirm the work complies with building regulations, and yet another is selling to a quick home buyer.
You will only have to pay commission if you decide to sell your property through an auction or with an estate agent, and this will add to your total expenses because the fee will be subtracted from the eventual sale proceeds. But if you instead opt for selling to an honest no-fee quick buyer or without any help from a third party then you will not have to pay any commission.
For the fastest sale, consider contacting LDN Properties or another quick buyer because it should only take a handful of weeks to complete the sale, including paying you the proceeds and exchanging contracts. The alternative selling methods of an auction, an estate agent or selling on your own could all take at least many months and possibly even longer.
