Selling half a house to a developer?

daveshoelace

This is all theoretical at this stage, just sounding out an idea.

My mother has a big house on a big area of land, in a great location. The house could easily be extended to twice the size.

She is retired and lives along. She really wants to stay in this house/area, but the bills are too big and she wants to release some cash in her property.

Is it at all a common thing for someone to sell half of their house to a developer, on the premise that they turn a detached into two semis. Then she keeps one of them, and the developer has the other to sell/live in/rent etc?

As an outcome its perfect for her, but obviously it seems like a very taxing and complicated undertaking, unless there are professionals that do this often.

Hoploz

It sounds to me as if it would be a lot simpler to sell half the garden, for someone to put a separate house on!

What's the point of extending a house to double the size, and divide it into two semis? All the disruption for your mother while her house is being torn to pieces!

Alternatively, if the house is too big for her now, you could build a smaller bungalow in the garden for her to live in and sell off the bigger house.

lincroft1710

I have never heard of anyone selling "half of their house", the usual procedure would be to create a second dwelling by doing a proper conversion and then sell the completed second dwelling.

eddddy

You might find it difficult to find a buyer for half a house.

Interestingly, a few years back, I looked at a large house which was being sold in 2 halves as 2 semis. It had planning consent, but no conversion work had been started.

Nobody was interested and they couldn't sell it. In the end, the vendor did some of the basic conversion work, and finally managed to sell it.

eddddy

...or would your mother consider renting out room(s) to help pay the bills?

Is the house sufficiently large that your mother and the lodgers wouldn't need to cross paths too often? e.g. Two bathrooms, a separate side/back door that the lodgers could use?

Thrugelmir

Sell the property in exchange for having a bespoke property built in the garden for your mother to live in.

stator

I don't think you'd find anyone willing to do this, it seems like asking for trouble if someone is still living in the house.

What I would do is divide the house into two yourselves, just put up a few walls. Make sure all the liveable parts are in your side. Then split the title and sell off the other half to a developer. They can renovate and make the other side livable.
You'd need to check with planning about how far you can go before you need planning permission.

Or as others have said, sell off part of the garden as a plot

bluesnake

If you can afford it, buy a share in your moms property, buy either giving her some money every month, or a mortgage under your name.

My friend was in a similar position he had a great house on a large piece of land near Heathrow, the developers bought his property and put up 3 semi's.

Also depending on the area/population, it may be possible to put up a few one bedroom chalets and rent them out on a long term basis so getting extra money in.

What I do not like are 'houses for life'. Often targeted to over 55's for about 20% cheaper, but when the person dies it is returned to the original owner. Seen a few 5 or 6 bedroom houses advertised under this scheme.

martindow

stator wrote: »

What I would do is divide the house into two yourselves, just put up a few walls. Make sure all the liveable parts are in your side. Then split the title and sell off the other half to a developer.

I think planning permission may be involved to split a dwelling like this.

rosyw

You would definitely need change of use permission to split the house into two. A mistake the developers who bought my last house made when they just went ahead without it :rotfl: local council slapped an enforcement notice on the place to get it returned to one, it took them over 2 years to finally get the approval they needed and they incurred a huge amount of extra expense! They ended up having to do a lot more work than they thought as having upset the planners they were forced to do all the little things that the planners would normally have turned a blind eye to. Upset the local planning dept. at your peril!! Five years down the line from when they bought the place and they're still having problems and haven't been able to sell.