Converting house to flats, whats involved??

moatmeister

Looking for advice from anyone who has done this successfully please.

Got a standard 2 bedroom semidetached house I rent out in a "letty" sort of area. The layout of the house is such that it would lend itself very neatly to a conversion to two selfcontained flats with seperate entrances without destroying the character of the house. Plenty of off road parking. Downstairs is virtually that already, would just need one door blocking off, upstairs would need a bit more work, kitchen fitting in a bedroom, the other converting to a bedsit, seperate electric meter etc.

I already have permission to let from BS.

What else would be involved????

The_Drama_Llama

You'll need planning permission, which can be easy to get or trickier, depending on your council and things like how many other houses in the street have been converted.

More time consuming/difficult is Building Regs...there's loads of those that you will have to comply with, esp. passage of sound rules, which you'll need to get specialists to test. Also fire regs, party wall stuff etc etc...

Then you'll need to get the utilities split...also a pain.

Are you going to make it two leasehold flats with a freehold? (ie. will you want to sell the flats separately at some point?) You'll need a lawyer to help with that.

It's not a cheap thing to do - a mate of mine did it and it cost around £100k, even though it looked 'simple'.

Doozergirl

It really isn't simple. Both properties will have to meet building regulations for a new dwelling, not an existing one.

You will need insulation - if the cavities aren't large enough then you will have to fit internal or external insulation. You will need fire-boarding and soundproofing between properties - which will be checked. New windows, firedoors, certainly to kitchens.

Indeed £50k per flat wouldn't be a bad guess at all. We did it when we were starting out and that was about the price then, using a builder.