Converting 2 flats into a family home? Advice please

Ellalou

Hi there,

Does anyone have any experience in knocking 2 flats (up and downstairs) into a semi detached house?

We currently live in an upper cottage flat (4 in the block style). Downstairs are elderly and considering moving soon...we want to get a bigger house in the same area very soon, just nothing has came on the market yet. We have 2 young kids (3 & 1) so need more space!

Does anyone know anything about how hard it is to make 2 flats into the one house and how it works with a mortgage etc?

Having looked into it I believe you can only have one kitchen and front door so we would need to block the front door of our flat, open up the stairs and remove the kitchen from our house upstairs for it to become one dwelling?

The only reason we are considering this is we currently have £74k outstanding in our flat (it's worth about £90k). It's in great condition and the only thing we would need to do is take the small kitchen out and make it an en suite bathroom in the upstairs. The flat downstairs we think would probably be about £75k as it will be dated..so both combined would be about just under £150k.

We would need to borrow money to do the alterations etc and I've no idea how this could be done? Would the bank maybe look at how much the value of the houses combined would be? It would be a 4 bed, 2 sitting room and 3 bathrooms & utility semi detached house with 2 driveways, large front,side and rear garden and a garage.

The semi detached houses just round the corner (can see from our window) are in the range of £180-200k for 3 bed semi with 2 sitting rooms. The ones with extensions, giving an extra room and bigger kitchen /diner are ranging between £200-£230k depending on the condition etc.

How hard would this be and would it just be too much money/hassle? It is appealing as we are in the area we want to be and it would give us a very large house and outside space.

I am also interested to know about the valuing of the house. All of the houses in our street are the same, cottage flats. The house at the opposite end of the street have done what we are talking about..knocked the flats into a house and also extended to the side. Just 1 street away just at the corner of my street, about 20 meters from our house is a street full of semi detached houses in the 200k region I was talking about. Would the house be considered like them or not because of the rest of the houses in my street?

So much to think about and there would also be a lot of legalities etc but if anyone could give any advice /opinions I would be really grateful.

Many thanks Ellalou

anselld

The construction and Building Regulation issues as much easier than going the other way. You would still need to apply for planning permission though for the change of use.

Ellalou

Thanks for the reply. Yeah there is definitely a lot to consider, initially we would probably have the 2 flats then need to apply for whatever permission is needed before we would be able to do it

Thrugelmir

No lender will base a mortgage advance on what the property could be worth. You need to raise capital yourselves to fund this project.

amnblog

No mention of any capital you have to hand to contribute to the project.

I suspect that will be your barrier.

BobQ

Are the flats leasehold (presumably)? What does the freehold owner think? Have you costed buying the freehold too?

Your figures do not tally. You say your flat is worth £90K with a £74K mortgage, then you say both flats are worth £75K.

It does not seem to be impossible to do but say your present flat is worth 90-100K. You are not sure the ground floor flat will be any cheaper but say it is £85K. So say the two together are worth £180K, does it make economic sense to spend say £20-30K (a vague guess since you do not provide a figure) on such a project when you could buy something round the corner for such a price?

Of course the flat downstairs may include the freehold and have other amenities (a garden?) and be worth more, and the couple may be elderly but that does not mean their property is run down.

Have you anywhere to live while these renovations happen? Such work is messy.

Seems to me you need to think this through more. Planning permission may be granted but often the building standards required are higher than when the original construction took place.

BobQ

Ellalou wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. Yeah there is definitely a lot to consider, initially we would probably have the 2 flats then need to apply for whatever permission is needed before we would be able to do it

Note also that having two flats while that is all being sorted could include 2X Council Tax, 2 Water Bills, 2 Electricity 2 Gas, 2 Insurance. Councils in particular are tightening up on allowing properties to remain empty without CT

sdrio

My neighbour looked at doing this a few years ago, she wanted to buy my flat (upstairs), so she could convert the two flats back into a house.

There were 3 problems;

- The council would not give permission for a project that reduced the net number of dwellings. This might just be a local policy (Ealing, London), but you might want to check that out first.

- The cost of doing it was actually much more than she imagined. The total value of the converted property would be less than the value of the two flats, and the conversion costs would disappear into that gap as well.

- She worked out it would be much cheaper to sell her flat, and buy a house.

I suspect the last two would apply to almost any project like that, when you actually sit down and do the sums.