Improvement to existing attic bedroom

[Uriel]

We have a 3 bedroom terrace, built circa 1905. The 3rd bedroom is an attic room and I believe it to be original (thereby pre-dating building regulations). We bought the property described as 3 bedroom and our mortgage valuation survey backed this up

The attic bedroom has a fixed staircase and a velux window. There is no door, however, either at the top or bottom of the stairs to the attic. The room is therefore open plan to the landing on the first floor. Around the staircase in the attic are half height partition walls. The stairs and landing are otherwise enclosed by fire doors from all ground and first floor rooms.

I would like to enclose the attic bedroom room, either by making the partitions full height and adding a door at the top of the stairs, or adding a door at the bottom of the stairs to the first floor landing.

What I don't want to do is complicate matters, should we decide to rent out the house or sell it later. Is enclosing the room likely to present problems with building regs in future?

 

[Uriel]

If a bedroom pre-dates building regs, as this does, I was under the impression it does not have to meet current regulations for selling purposes. Renting is probably a different matter.

The house is therefore classed as 3 bedroom including the attic bedroom, on the basis that it is an original room (and staircase) and not a conversion. We are not looking at adding a 4th bedroom.

What I don't want to do is cross the line onto more substantial alterations that would require current building regulation approval (at least not without doing it intentionally and properly).

 

[Uriel]

I think you're forgetting some key info. The building regulations do not apply retrospectively to works that pre-date them. The building regs did not effectively reclassify existing bedrooms as non-habitable.

This attic room is therefrore technically a 3rd bedroom on the basis that it pre-dates the building regulations. It can still be sold as such. If, however, we carry out significant enough alterations the regulations do apply. We've then got to bring it up to current standards or risk it being classed as non-habitable.

As it stands, I believe the property could only be rented as 2 bedroom, without upgrade.

If we put up a partition in the attic, it would be to enclose the existing stairs, not to create another room.