I'm thinking about buying the house next door

aliasojo

planning_officer wrote: »

Eh? Makes perfect sense to me - there are obviously planning issues with converting one dwelling into two - more garden space needed, intensification of the site, more parking required etc. However there are no planning issues with converting two houses into one - less parking required, etc, so it is actually quite sensible!

To convert an original single dwelling into two has it's obvious issues and I can understand why you would need planning etc.....but if you convert two existing dwellings into one and then want to reinstate them, it seems a little 'red tape-ish' to have to go through all the same rigmarole as you would have to for the original single > double scenario.

But what do I know. :rotfl:

planning_officer

aliasojo wrote: »

To convert an original single dwelling into two has it's obvious issues and I can understand why you would need planning etc.....but if you convert two existing dwellings into one and then want to reinstate them, it seems a little 'red tape-ish' to have to go through all the same rigmarole as you would have to for the original single > double scenario.

But what do I know. :rotfl:

Yes I completely see your point, but there are instances where two dwellings are converted into one and 40 years later, someone wants to convert them back into two - in that case, car ownership and parking issues have obviously changed a lot in the intervening 40 years. There has to be one consistent rule though - you can't just say that because it was only converted, say, 2 years ago, permission is not required to change it back into 2 dwellings. However, if the timespan involved was quite short, then obviously that would count in favour of granting permission to convert them back into 2 dwellings (it would be quite unreasonable for a Council to refuse permission if the dwellings had only been amalgamated 12 months ago, for example).

pusscat

I am in the process of doing just this!

Planning_officer - I hope you can advise as I am still waiting for a definite answer back from my local planners......

I own a 3 story town house.

My partner owns the one next door. We need a larger family home and rather than move we hope to remove a wall between the kitchen/diners to create an internal way between the two houses.
Nothing else will change - externally or internally as the layout suits us the way it is.
We may get rid of one set of kitchen units as we all eat together.

We will need building control to check this hole in the wall - that is fine. I also know we don't need planning permission to do it - but would we need planning permission to fill the hole in again in the future?

As I see it, we are keeping 2 separate houses, just with internal access to each other. We can even make it that the access is able to be closed - bi-fold doors or something.

Hope that makes sense - any thoughts welcome!

Thanks

edgex

pusscat wrote: »

I am in the process of doing just this!

Planning_officer - I hope you can advise as I am still waiting for a definite answer back from my local planners......

I own a 3 story town house.

My partner owns the one next door. We need a larger family home and rather than move we hope to remove a wall between the kitchen/diners to create an internal way between the two houses.
Nothing else will change - externally or internally as the layout suits us the way it is.
We may get rid of one set of kitchen units as we all eat together.

We will need building control to check this hole in the wall - that is fine. I also know we don't need planning permission to do it - but would we need planning permission to fill the hole in again in the future?

As I see it, we are keeping 2 separate houses, just with internal access to each other. We can even make it that the access is able to be closed - bi-fold doors or something.

Hope that makes sense - any thoughts welcome!

Thanks

have you checked with your insurer?
surely it being a partywall, it would also be a firewall?


as for planning permission, its got to be worth informing them of what you want to do, so if in the future you apply for permission to re-instate it, they know what it is your re-instating.

PasturesNew

I saw one on the telly that was a listed building they wanted to turn from 2 into 1, as they couldn't move/change anything, what they did was stick a glass corridor/conservatory the width of the rear to get from one to the other.

Errata

As I see it, we are keeping 2 separate houses, just with internal access to each other. We can even make it that the access is able to be closed - bi-fold doors or something.

If you're going to insist that they are still two separate houses, you'll be paying two lots of council tax and water rates.

pusscat

Errata wrote: »

If you're going to insist that they are still two separate houses, you'll be paying two lots of council tax and water rates.

Good point - we are paying two lots at the moment - any discounts would be nice though!

We will keep all of the utilities seperate as it is too complex to change them. The plan is to convert back to 2 seperate houses in approx 5-7 years (when family circs change!)

Thanks for the point about the insurers though. We have checked with an Architect who says that so long as building control sign off is obtained then the insurers should be happy with the fire regs provision etc.
But it will be wise to check it a bit further.

The party wall agreement shold be ok as we own both sides of hte party wall.

We are still in the early days of thinking about this though, so all suggestions are really welcome - thanks!

Basically we cannot move from this street for say 5 years (family circs) and our family has grown quite a bit in size (teenage step kids moved in) so we need to do something to increase our living space.

The local planners have been really slow - we submitted the questions in writing and are just at the bottom of a pile.

Personally we don't really care if they are classed as one house or two. We will still have to have 2 lots of utilities and the double council tax is a fairly small problem in the grand scheme of things (would be less than double as we could claim single person discount?). We are looking for whatever is easier in terms of planning and reinstating the wall at the end.

My nightmare is that we open up the two houses into 1, and when we come to reinstate the wall in say 7 years, the planners say "well you need to bring it up to all the latest building specs to get planning permission to put a few bricks in to convert it back to 2 houses!"

Thanks loads!
Puss

pusscat

PasturesNew wrote: »

I saw one on the telly that was a listed building they wanted to turn from 2 into 1, as they couldn't move/change anything, what they did was stick a glass corridor/conservatory the width of the rear to get from one to the other.

That is a definite possibility - thanks

edgex

er, why do you think youd be able to claim single person discount?
are you already doing so?

youll need to check with the local council tax office
if they decide to class the property as 1, because your treating it as 1, theyll stop the discount, & chase you for what youve saved



it all seems a lot of work for what is a relatively short period of time.

take out wall, take out kitchen

5 years later:
rebuild wall, install new kitchen


would it not be easier just to take down a fence panel?

pusscat

edgex wrote: »

er, why do you think youd be able to claim single person discount?
are you already doing so?

youll need to check with the local council tax office
if they decide to class the property as 1, because your treating it as 1, theyll stop the discount, & chase you for what youve saved



it all seems a lot of work for what is a relatively short period of time.

take out wall, take out kitchen

5 years later:
rebuild wall, install new kitchen


would it not be easier just to take down a fence panel?

Sorry OP - I don't want to hijack your thread - but hopefully some of the advice on here is helping you too?

The council tax thing is already applicable - 3 adults accross two houses - one must only contain 1 adult.

I realise it looks a little strange - but it is a bit of a wierd situation and it works for us (both practically and financially) but I don't want to go into to much detail on t'interweb.

I have 3 criteria - for it to be done legally and all above board, for it to be done so that we can easily put the properties back to two (if circumstances change) and for it to be the best value possible.

The fence panel is the back up plan - just a bit more difficult as the ground floor is bedroom accomodation.

Sorry I can't be more specific, but thanks for taking the time to think it through for me - much appreciated.

Puss