Selling a house with a replaced conservatory roof

If your conservatory has had its glass or polycarbonate roof replaced with a solid or tiled one, the buyer’s solicitor will usually want to see the building control completion certificate. GOV.UK puts it plainly: “Without approval you will not have the certificates of compliance you may need when you want to sell your home.” If you have the certificate, the electrical certificate and the guarantees, the roof should not hold up the sale. If you do not, there are ways to fix it, but they take weeks, not days.

This guide covers what a buyer will ask for, the paperwork to find before you list, and your options if a solid roof was never signed off.

Do solid conservatory roofs need building regs?

Yes. Swapping a glass or polycarbonate roof for a solid or tiled one needs a building regulations application, because the conservatory is no longer exempt. A like-for-like glazed roof on an exempt conservatory usually does not. So for a solid roof, the completion certificate is the document a buyer’s solicitor will expect to see.

LABC, which represents council building control in England and Wales, says that if you replace a translucent roof with a solid one “you’ll need to submit a building regulations application as the change will need approval”. The certificate is issued at the end, after the final inspection. Our building regulations guide explains the process for a roof you have not yet replaced.

What the buyer’s solicitor will ask for

Most sales in England and Wales use the Law Society’s Property Information Form, the TA6. Its 6th edition (2025) became mandatory for firms in the Conveyancing Quality Scheme on new instructions from 30 March 2026. Section 5, “Alterations”, asks whether work needed planning permission, building regulations approval or competent person certificates.

The Law Society’s explanatory notes say “Building regulations approval is often needed for building construction, extensions and some alterations” and ask sellers to hand over “copies of any planning permissions or building control consents”. In other words, the form asks the question directly, and the answer needs a document behind it.

Homeowners’ experiences show how this plays out. A Mumsnet user whose builder said no approval was needed had it flagged by the buyer’s solicitor five years later, and a buyer on the MoneySavingExpert forum found a lightweight roof had been fitted without approval while both the seller and the installer claimed none was needed.

The paperwork to find before you list

Document	Who issues it	Why it matters
Building control completion certificate	Your council, or a registered building control approver the installer used	Proves the solid roof was approved. Regulation 17 says it is “evidence (but not conclusive evidence)” of compliance. It does not expire
Electrical certificate for roof lighting	The registered electrician, via their competent person scheme	Spotlights in the ceiling are electrical work. Building control does not hold copies of these certificates
Product and workmanship guarantees, and any insurance-backed guarantee	The roof maker, installer and insurer	Buyers ask what cover transfers with the house
Roof specification (insulation type and thickness, U-value)	The installer	Lets an energy assessor record the insulation on a new EPC
FENSA or similar certificate, if windows were replaced	The window installer’s scheme	Covers replacement windows, not the roof
Lawful Development Certificate or listed building consent, if you have one	Your council	Planning certainty; separate from building regulations

If the certificate is missing, contact whoever issued it. LABC says a replacement completion certificate from the council may incur a charge. If you cannot remember who handled building control, the installer’s paperwork or the council should be able to tell you.

If the roof was fitted without approval

This is more common than it should be: forum threads include roofs where the seller, and sometimes the installer, believed no approval was needed. You have two main routes, and they are not equal.

	Regularisation certificate	Indemnity insurance
What it is	Retrospective approval from the council’s building control	A policy that pays out if the council takes enforcement action
Who can give it	Local authority building control only, not a private approver	An insurer, usually arranged through the solicitors
Limits	Only for work carried out after 11 November 1985	Contacting building control about the work may invalidate the policy
What happens	The council may ask you to open up parts of the roof so hidden items, such as insulation, can be checked	Nothing is inspected
Cost	More than applying at the time. Rotherham charges £480 to approve a conservatory re-roof in advance but £800 to regularise one; Durham charges £489 and £613 to renew a roof structure	Around £250 in one Mumsnet account; £100 to £250 in one installer’s guide
Does it prove the roof is safe?	Yes, if it passes	No. LABC says it “does not protect you and your family from dangerous installations, poor design, or life-safety issues”

LABC describes indemnity policies as “frequently used as a quick solution for buyers and lenders”, but says regularisation is the long-term fix and that compliance may be made a condition of a future sale. In England, a regularisation application is judged against the regulations that applied when the work was carried out. In Scotland the equivalent process, submitting a completion certificate for work done without a warrant, is judged against the regulations in force on the date you submit it.

If you are unsure whether the structure is sound, a Mumsnet contributor suggested a RICS surveyor could assess whether the frames support the roof before you decide which route to take.

How long can the council take action?

In England, a council can serve a notice requiring non-compliant work to be altered or removed for up to 10 years after the work was completed. That limit came into force on 1 October 2023; before then it was 12 months. Wales moved to the same 10-year limit on 1 July 2026.

Whether the 10 years can reach work finished before October 2023 whose old 12-month window had already expired was not confirmed in our research, and the council can still seek a court injunction, which has no time limit in the Act.

Two points matter for sellers and buyers:

• Enforcement follows the property. Solicitors Porter Dodson explain that action is taken against whoever owns the property when proceedings start, which is why a buyer’s solicitor cares.
• Listed buildings have no time limit. The TA6 notes say there are no time limits for enforcement of listed building control, and a buyer can face action over a previous owner’s work.

Planning enforcement runs separately: 10 years in England for most operational development, or 4 years if it was substantially completed before 25 April 2024, and 4 years in Wales. Most roof replacements on lawful conservatories do not need planning permission, but our planning permission guide covers the exceptions.

Does a tiled conservatory roof add value to a house?

We found no independent figure, and no data from Nationwide, Halifax, Rightmove, Zoopla or Which? on what a solid conservatory roof adds to a sale price. One installer claims an approved solid roof can add 5% to 7%; another says it depends on location, condition and buyers. What is clear is that missing paperwork can cost you time.

Which? says orangeries and extensions can add more value than conservatories, and 6% of Which? members surveyed in 2026 wished they had built an extension instead. Nationwide’s research on energy ratings found only 22% of homeowners named increasing their home’s value as the main reason for improvements. Our guide to whether a tiled roof is worth it weighs the case on comfort and use, which is where most of the benefit lies.

How a replaced roof shows up on your EPC

You need an Energy Performance Certificate to sell, and a replaced roof changes how the assessor treats the conservatory. Since 6 August 2026, RdSAP conventions say a conservatory whose roof has been replaced, or given a false ceiling, must be recorded as an extension rather than ignored. The assessor can only record its insulation if there is visual or documentary evidence; without it, a pitched roof with no loft access is entered with insulation as “none”.

So keep the roof specification and the completion certificate where you can hand them to the assessor. The net effect on a given EPC score was not tested in our research. For context, Nationwide found an A or B rating carried a modest premium of 1.6% over a similar D-rated home, and “little difference” between C, D and E.

Replacing the roof before you sell

If you are planning a new roof and a sale in the same year, build the paperwork into the timetable. GOV.UK says a completion certificate usually arrives within 8 weeks of the work being finished, as long as it complies. One installer’s guide puts the whole process, from survey to certificate, at 4 to 10 weeks.

When you get quotes, ask each installer who will submit the building control application, to which body, and when you will have the completion certificate in your hands; our questions to ask an installer covers the rest. Ask too whether the guarantees transfer to a buyer, as our guide to guarantees explains.