what to do with garage

planning_officer

Cknocker wrote: »

The council are certainly going to struggle to find out otherwise though. The garage I converted had that very restrictive covenant on it, but it looks like a garage from the front, A PO would have to be very bored to start looking into it, obviously where it can become an issue is if the house is sold, whereby the purchasers solicitor should pick up on it.

As a matter of interest, in such a situation where it is against a planning condition, where does it stand with time acquired rights?

The letter of the law is all well and good, but its only any good if someone is enforcing it.

I quite agree with your latter point - I'm sure there are a lot of unauthorised garage conversions around! Often, neighbours or parish councils (especially neighbours in my experience) will shop people who do unauthorised conversions, as they are worried about more on-street parking outside their houses. The best one I had was when someone applied to build an extension and their architect had drawn the existing garage conversion on the 'existing plans' of the house - that was soon picked up on!

To acquire immunity from enforcement action, a breach of condition has to be ongoing for 10 years before it has 'time acquired rights'.

Rockporkchop

We converted our detached garage in January. We had a double garage, converted half of it to a playroom and left the other half as it was. As the garage was detached it did need planning permission for "change of use". This cost £700 all in. The actual garage conversion cost £7,000 which included plastering, doing the floor, skirting, ceiling, loft hatch for storage, door, window, storage heaters, six plug sockets, two lights and all building regs consents (which were required). I would highly recommend the company we used. We have now got a 17' x 9' room which I think was well worth the money.

Cknocker

Planning Officer, you are considering a garage in a different setting to what I am. I assume you are considering a suburban stree with a row of houses, each with garages.

The issue with my parents is very different.

1. It is impossible to get a modern car into the garage.
2. They have a large driveway, with parking for several cars.
3. The neighbour had already converted his garage with planning permission, prior to the new next door neighbour moving in, who the parents get on very well with and he is not the type to shop anyone to the council.
4. The cost of the conversion was less than the cost of the planning permission, as 90% of the materials came FOC.

We converted it four years ago and no issue to date with it.

gadjah543

We have just had our single detatched garage converted to a playroom.It cost £3,300 This included full insulation on floors ,ceiling and walls,laminate floor,coving and skirting boards.As our garage was slighly longer than the normal we managed to retain a storage area behind the garage door which is partitioned off from the playroom.We also fitted patio doors which I would highly recommend as without it the room looked really dark and the whole point as far as we were concerned was to make the room attractive so that the children would want to go out there.It is a lovely room and well worth the money we paid not to hear the thump of the guitar hero band on Wii !!As others have said the insulation did bring in the walls considerably but because one wall is half glass from the patio doors this does compensate for it.Hope this helps.

planning_officer

Cknocker wrote: »

Planning Officer, you are considering a garage in a different setting to what I am. I assume you are considering a suburban stree with a row of houses, each with garages.

The issue with my parents is very different.

1. It is impossible to get a modern car into the garage.
2. They have a large driveway, with parking for several cars.
3. The neighbour had already converted his garage with planning permission, prior to the new next door neighbour moving in, who the parents get on very well with and he is not the type to shop anyone to the council.
4. The cost of the conversion was less than the cost of the planning permission, as 90% of the materials came FOC.

We converted it four years ago and no issue to date with it.

It sounds like it may be quite an old garage and given its setting and the amount of other parking available, it's unlikely a restrictive condition was applied to it when it was built - but it can apply to any garage, it just depends whether the Council at the time of granting it planning permission decide it is appropriate to impose such a condition - although you're right, restrictive conditions are most commonly applied to newer housing developments built at a higher density and with less off-street parking provision. Then, the condition is justified as if a garage is converted it may well increase on-street parking.

Cknocker

I have checked, it does have the condition on it, the garage was built in 1979, the house was built in 1972.

Myself I live on a new development and to say parking is a nightmare is an understatement, the planning condition was for 1.4 parking spaces per dwelling, so some have 1 some have 2.

Mine has a garage and a parking bay, but due to the construction of the garage, I can get the car in the garage, however there is a supporting pillar each side where the doors come, so I can't get out the car!

There is not one person on the estate who can get a car in their garage, surely councils should be insisting that garages are big enough to accomodate a car when they set such ridiculous parking provision requiremnts?

planning_officer

Yes they should - we have minimum internal standards for garages to ensure cars can fit in them! Not sure if your Council have similar provisions, but if they do - it sounds like they are not particularly adequate!

ormus

the minimum standard seems to be for a ford fiesta and kate moss.

planning_officer

Depends on what the standard is!

MUMMYTO2BOYS

campbellt wrote: »

Have you read about infrared heating? check out www. heatandenergy .org they guarantee a minimum 50% reduction in energy costs.
Also they have limited funding for a interior solid wall insulation solution like wallpaper. It is Energy saving Trust reccomended, I have used this and found it very easy and quick to apply and it made a real difference!

You really should recommend this great website in more of your posts :rolleyes: