Garage conversion amendments

jay7_2

We're in the process of buying a house which had internal garage converted into a family room. Front part of the garage is a small storage room with the original garage door. The conversion is not visible from the outside and basically consists only of a thin plasterboard partition wall, laminate flooring and skimmed walls and ceiling in the family room. Apparently the council was notified when the previous owner of the house did the conversion but I haven't seen any paperwork yet.

We want to change the layout of the original garage slightly. We need more room in the fron of the garage (motorbike, roofbox, etc.) so we want to move the internal wall towards the back of the original garage, changing the family room into a small internal storage room. Would we need to notify the council of these changes? I assume we don't need a planning permission for such alteration - or do we?

Is this likely to change (lower) the council tax? I'm thinking the house will have one room less... although I'm not sure if a "family room" qualifies as a bedroom as well.

lincroft1710

Most unlikely to affect CT band. House no longer has a garage, but has a small family room instead, so unlikely that CT band increased when carried out and if conversion carried out by person you're buying from after 1 Apr 1993 band will not have been increased.

It is the value of the property as a whole that is looked at for CT purposes, not just how many rooms there are.

Sammy85_2

Im no buildings expert but from my limited knowledge:

Integral garages are supposed to be fireproofed (for obvious reasons). I would think that the previous owners were allowed to make it into a family room with internal access as the risk of a car exploding into flames had been removed.

However. If you are planning to increase the storage space to fit a motorbike in, then you are reintroducing the fire risk and that internal wall that you are moving would need to be fireproof, otherwise fire would spead through into the internal room and through the door into the house.

You could of course do all this, not tell the council and so not have building regs problems, but you really need to consider the safety of your family when making the alterations.