Selling off-site driveway to neighbour?

Chris_Quartly

Just had a neighbour pop round and asking if I was interested in selling my driveway.

The space is not connected to the house, I'm in a mid-terrace of 3 houses, then to the right of those three there is a shared driveway and I have a space at the end which I could convert to a garage with a bit of work (imagine it as a garage without a door or a roof, it's a 3-walled open space), it's connected to his garage (which is an actual garage) and he wants to make an extension.

I said I'd have a think about it because I wanted to check all the implications, I'm 1/3 liable to pay for any damages to the shared-driveway if anything happens to it, so I'd want my name taken off of that since it will have nothing to do with me anymore. We also didn't discuss what kind of offer he'd be willing to make or what I'd want as I have no idea at present time.

I'm tempted to sell because I don't think the money I would spend on turning it into a garage would add the same amount of value onto the property, truth be told you can barely squeeze a car in there anyway.

I should also add that there's a driveway in front of the house that can fit two cars, so it's not an issue of having any less parking space, I don't use the space currently.

Has anyone done anything like this to know the implications? Or how much it would be worth?

DVardysShadow

Annual rental of garage = £12/week * 52 = £624

Money in bank to yield £624 @ 2.75% = £624/0.0275 = £22690.91

Cost of work to convert to garage = £1578.63

Value of site = Value as garaging - cost of converting to garage
= £22690.91 - £1578.63 = £21112.28

It is almost certainly the wrong answer. But you can fiddle with the numbers and the ideas. Note that increasing the notional interest rate will reduce the value.

Chris_Quartly

There's no way the garage would be rented so I don't think you can take that into consideration. I'll contact my solicitor on Monday and see how much it's going to cost in terms of legal fees, that will be a starting point. I was just wondering if anyone else had gone through a similar process.

DVardysShadow

Chris_Quartly wrote: »

There's no way the garage would be rented so I don't think you can take that into consideration.

It does not matter. The basic idea is that it could be and that is what you might get. OK, you cannot be bothered to do it - but if someone would pay you £12/week then it would be worth your while to do the conversion and let it out. Once you sell, you lose that opportunity - and that is the loss of value which the neighbour should be paying for.

Bananamana

Chris_Quartly wrote: »

There's no way the garage would be rented so I don't think you can take that into consideration. I'll contact my solicitor on Monday and see how much it's going to cost in terms of legal fees, that will be a starting point. I was just wondering if anyone else had gone through a similar process.

Most likely a straightforward transfer of part but further complicated if you have a mortgage as lender will need to consent and will also depend on how the upkeep of the drive provision is worded in your title.

sharkie

you may not be able to get your Merc in there, however as storage, or as 'business space' i.e workshop, even without electricity it could be ideal

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-16439241.html

Do three garages make a house similar to monopoly?

jockosjungle

How much is he offering, might he stick another house on the land?

R

Chris_Quartly

We haven't talked about money yet, he just asked me as a general "would you be interested...", Sharkie, it's not really like that either in terms of the layout. Basically think of a house that has two garages connected to it, mine is the second garage (but isn't a garage, merely a 3-walled space (without a roof or door, it's really just a patch of land, about 12' x 8' (guess)) but is about 50-yards from my actual house. He wants to extend on his building.

Yorkie1

If he wants to extend on his property, I'd consider hard about what impact that might have on your property - either in its enjoyment now, or if you come to sell.

Once he has the land, how far could he extend? Would it mean it overlooks your property in any way? Or prevent you from doing anything you do now? You couldn't rely on being able to object in the planning process in order to control what he does with the land.

Also, what would the increase in value of his house be if he extended? Could be relevant to any assessment you make of the value of the strip.

lee636

sharkie wrote: »

Do three garages make a house similar to monopoly?

:rotfl:Made me chuckle!

Chris_Quartly

Yorkie1 wrote: »

If he wants to extend on his property, I'd consider hard about what impact that might have on your property - either in its enjoyment now, or if you come to sell.

Once he has the land, how far could he extend? Would it mean it overlooks your property in any way? Or prevent you from doing anything you do now? You couldn't rely on being able to object in the planning process in order to control what he does with the land.

Also, what would the increase in value of his house be if he extended? Could be relevant to any assessment you make of the value of the strip.

The space is well away from my house and there wouldn't be any aesthetic issues for me at all so that's not a problem no matter how far he extended. The main issue is the potential loss of value to my house, it's certainly not really adding anything in its current state and if I made enough money to tart up the driveway in front of the house I'm not sure it would be an issue either. I suppose it all comes down to what he's willing to offer.

I don't have any ideas about the legal costs at the moment, I haven't heard back from my solicitor yet.