Buying house with half finished extension

smithy009

Hi folks,

I am looking at possibly buying a house which has a half-finished extension. Having never done an extension before I'm a complete novice and wonder if you can help with these questions:

1) The extension so far has foundations and water/electric installed at one corner. Any ideas roughly what percentage of the cost is left to finish the job? It's two storey - dbl garage with living quarters on top.

2) The plans are from 2007. Will planning permission have lapsed? What woudl you do in this situation?

3) In a normal project, how long does it usually take from plans to commence building work?

4) As a rule of thumb, what is the cost per sq m of a two-story extension?

5) What circumstances would cause someone to stop working on an extension? Lack of money is one. Any other possible reasons?

5) If I were to call the planning office to find out more, what questions should I ask?

6) In your experience, if I wanted to change the use of the extension, e.g. from garage to something else, how easy is this? Has anyoen had success with this?

7) What other questions should I ask?

8) What the best book / web site on extensions.

Thanks!

freddykrueger

I'm in a similar position as yourself looking at a house with foundations in place for an extension - I am actually getting a builder to check the foundations to see that they are viable for the extension proposed.

Just hope we are not going for the same house :eek:

smithy009

Lol!

Would there not have been an inspection during the building of the foundations?

freddykrueger

smithy009 wrote: »

Lol!

Would there not have been an inspection during the building of the foundations?

Yes I would imagine there was but I have no idea who built the foundations so I am just getting them checked - after all if they need ripped up again then that would have an impact on what I would offer for the property. I think the house I am interested in has had the founds in place for a while.

Tucker

Have you googled the rules on planning? ie do you have 5 years to start or complete etc...

Otherwise I'd ring them and discuss your concerns.

Then ring Building Control. They will hopefully have inspected the footings and the slab before concrete was poured. I say hopefully, as you have to apply for BC and they may not have done, so it may never have been inspected, which adds to the problem as the footings will have to be checked by exposing the corners and so on.

Cost wise, to get it to slab height is not that expensive in terms of overall cost. I think mine came to about a 5th / 6th of the overall complete cost for a single story, so for a double it will be less than that.