I'm thinking about buying the house next door

jonesjw

Why not just get on with it & install one fire door directly between the properties?
The council need never find out. When it's sale time, just block the door up again.

I would check with your household insurance company & formally notify them, as if both houses burnt down it would be unfortunate if the insurer refused to pay up.

StevenDickinson

Making 2 properties into one depends on the properties. All that say waste of money etc. could have a point, but if it is easy enough and not that costly and enhances your life why not?
We converted our house and the next door semi into 2 houses earlier this year. No planning perm required just building regs. The building regs were £60, the plans drawn £100 and the work carried out £900 for a fire door bottom of stairs and arch at the top. Both stairs mirror each other and are either side of the joining wall which makes layout easy enough. So for Approx. £1000 to have a 6 bed, 4 bathroom house with huge garden (fence panels removed) why not? Easy enough to put back if required.
Council Tax reband is a minefield though as getting it rebanded as a single dwelling is proving very red-tape(ish). I find dealing with councils etc. quite difficult as straight answers either cannot be given or you have to jump through hoops for a simple job. Basically they don't want it to be too easy to put back, so want us to rip out 1 oven, 1 hob, 1 fridge and even then can't give us a answer that it would pass a reband after doing this. I just want an answer and not rip things out to then be knocked back. Anyone know what else they would ask to do to convince them that it wouldnt be put back to 2 dwellings straight after it was rebanded? We have though of taking the set of stairs out of 1 side to help our case.
Cheers!

jonesjw

If you can get a reliable solicitor to confirm you legally have one house, then just pay the council tax on one property & tell the council where to go when they chase the other half.
I imagine they cannot legally charge 2 lots of council tax on one property, so as long as you legally have one property it's job done.
Is it registered as one property at the Land Registry?

After this, they should have it revalued in no time.

pulliptears

My Aunt (through marriage) was one of 16 kids. The "family" lived in a small street of terraced houses and owned the first 5 houses in the street. All remained separate and all were connected to one another via a locking door in the rear rooms of each. The middle house belonged to the parents and was usually the fullest!

This was some years ago, but to this day all the houses are still in the family and all still have the doors leading though.

planning_officer

pusscat wrote: »

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?

Sorry for very late response, was trawling through some old threads and just noticed your question!

The answer is yes, definitely - it is the use of the houses that matters in planning terms, irrespective of the physical works involved. You will be using the building as one dwelling (it will be occupied by one family, not two), so yes, you will need planning permission to convert it back to two dwellings in the future.