Complete renovation needed - are we taking on too much??

deputy2404 · 9 April 2013 at 9:42PM

My partner and I have seen a house just outside of Peterborough, which has the potential to suit all our needs for our growing family. Its a repossession and is empty, but it needs work, such as the windows replacing, conservatory, staircase moving, the kitchen re-doing and the bathroom re-designing. It also has a one storey lift in the centre which we need to remove and replace with a staircase. We can do certain things ourselves (removal of old units/stud walls etc) but we are going to need tradesmen to do a lot of work. We obviously have a finite budget but our problem is that we live 2hrs away from the property (complete family relocation) and we don't know of any local builders. How do you go about getting good recommendations?? We were thinking of renting a caravan and living in it on site so as to be there whilst the builders are there, but I worry that we are taking on a bit too much. We are getting the house at a very good price and with this work we would have the house of our dreams, but we're kind of stuck on what to do next - any advice would be appreciated x

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Ciderarmy1987 · 9 April 2013 at 9:43PM

You may struggle to get a mortgage if it needs too much work doing to it

deputy2404 · 9 April 2013 at 9:46PM

We are mostly cash buyers, so the mortgage isn't a problem

Ulfar · 9 April 2013 at 10:06PM

deputy2404 wrote: »

We are mostly cash buyers, so the mortgage isn't a problem

Does not compute, either you are a cash buyer or you need a mortgage.

The property you describe may well be deemed to be unmortgageable. In which case if you need a mortgage at all you are on to a non starter.

In my opinion I think this is too much as your are talking about some pretty major structural works that you are going to rely on trades men to get right.

deputy2404 · 9 April 2013 at 10:09PM

Apologies - we are only getting a very small mortgage, the rest is being paid with cash. As for the work that needs doing, none of it is structural - we have already established that before looking further into it. We know we will need good tradesmen - the question is where/how to find them

bestofdevon · 9 April 2013 at 10:12PM

have a look on the Trading Standards site - they include a list of vetted tradesmen.

Good luck!

moneyistooshorttomention · 10 April 2013 at 7:26AM

Whew! That is a lot of work. I wouldn't take on anything needing a staircase moving and/or a lift taken out myself.

I'd be prepared to do kitchen and bathroom and windows and conservatory and take down/put up a wall or two - as all these things are pretty standard and there should be a good choice of workmen to do this.

It would certainly help you if you had a friend there already in the area, who you could trust to tell you of decent workmen and I would quail at the thought of having to suss out a load of workmen for myself in an area where I had no contacts in advance. If a house is one where work could be done gradually and you could at least live in the house whilst you found out what workmen locally you could trust to do a decent job, then you could manage...but that house sounds like "harder work" than that to me and you would need to see about that staircase and lift immediately...

You're a braver woman than me if you take that one on...

lessonlearned · 10 April 2013 at 8:11AM

To find tradespeople

https://www.ratedpeople.com or simply google "rated trades".

However, it's not that simple.

Unless you are living locally you will need someone to project manage the development for you. Yes you can employ a project manager, however will you be able to manage the project manager.

Yes I know that makes me sound like a right control freak and hands up to that. I am indeed someone who insists of maintaining a firm grip on things.

I would not - under any circumstances - attempt any kind of project unless I could be on site every day. I might concede to do this if I had a tried and trusted project manager, but then even so you still need regular meetings and you need to be on the end of a phone for any queries or issues that need answers to.

Re the staircase - depending on the complexity you can either employ a joiner for this or you may need a specialist firm.
Either way you will need a structural engineer to assess what can and cannot be done and you will of course need full building regulations.

If the house is likely to be uninhabitable for some time it might be in your interests to either rent something cheap and cheerful so that you can be on hand to supervise or if it's semi habitable you could just move in and out as required. For example if you have no bathroom for a few days then you could move into a B&B.

Alternatively you can hire a chemical port-a-loo as and when.

It just depends on how far you are prepared to rough it. It is perfectly possible to "live on a building site" but it can be unpleasant and uncomfortable. Not too bad in the summer but hell on earth in the winter. (Yes I've done it:eek:)

If the garden is big enough there is always the option of a cheap caravan.

Good luck. Ripping apart and restoring a property can be fun - if you've got the stomach for it. (And a strong back!!!!)

Me?? I love it - happy as a pig in a muck.........Just a pity I no longer have the strong back and I now have to be less hands on. My role tends to be more supervisory these days.

phoebe1989seb · 10 April 2013 at 11:22PM

We attempted to use *rated people* when we'd not long moved to our current project house, but found we received little response when we posted the work we required doing.

Ours is another huuuuuuuge project - it was considered unmortgageable so good job we didn't need one - and we've been living on site whilst the work is ongoing, which meant no heating or hot water for almost six months last year. We've done it before though so are used to it, but it's not for the faint-hearted and maybe living off site, either in a caravan or else in rented accommodation would be better suited to some of a less hardy disposition

The rewards of taking on such a project, however are well worth the effort and hardship IMHO - 'no pain, no gain' as they say

Finding trustworthy, good tradespeople can be really hard - we had moved to a completely new part of the country and were fortunate that DH knew a good architect from his background in design and we also knew of a great sparky - but other than that we had to rely mainly on word of mouth recommendations from neighbours once we'd purchased and moved in.

Very luckily we got chatting to a guy along the street, DH asked him if he'd help him to move something we couldn't do between us and it turned out he was in the building trade. Long story short he was able to supply a team of builders for our kitchen extension and another neighbour put us onto an excellent carpenter

We've also found a reliable plumber (the first one we found was useless!) by looking at the ads in our local village shop, so it's worth exploring these often overlooked sources........

Good luck with your project - it sounds like it has loads of potential!

AlexMac · 11 April 2013 at 12:24AM

Buy a few copies, or better still, a subscription to "Homebuilding and Renovating" monthly- full of articles on identifying good contactors (albeit no specific register of good uns,) project managing major refurbs, etc, plus inspirational case studies of how amateurs have done much more than you plan. Check for cheap subs offers on their website.
My only caution would be that with so much to do, finished project costs might exceed value, but that's less important unless you plan to sell on soon, and the upside is that you get a personalised house with masses of emotional investment.
No magic way to find contractors, but friends of ours who moved to a Dorset village fell on their feet by starting with very local recommendations, then local tradespeople and their networks/

We're regrettably probably too old to do what you plan, and wish to continue to live in a part of the world (London) where such opportunities are rare as developers snap up the rare wrecks, but I'm jealous and would have loved a project on this scale- the most I've done are £20-30k refurb/re-roof projects... Good luck!

conradmum · 11 April 2013 at 7:26AM

You say you have a growing family? How will the children cope with living in a caravan? Are they at school? Won't it be unsafe to have them around building works? Personally, I wouldn't do it if I had young children. It's too disruptive to family life.

Complete renovation needed - are we taking on too much??

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