Neighbour wants to convert garage that is attached to our property

EssexExile

I'm struggling to see a problem here. At the moment you have a garage attached to your house, in there the neighbour may do DIY, work on his car, place the washing machine & tumble dryer, let his son set up his drum kit & let his other son play computer games before growing up & tinkering with motorbikes. I can't see a utility room or playroom being any worse.

I also think you are getting too hung up with labels, it doesn't matter whether the estate agent calls it a detached house, a link detached house or a semi-detached house. In practice nothing would have changed, looking at a picture will tell buyers what they're getting.

Just up the road from me is a building, over the years different parts of it have been put on the market variously described as the west wing, the east wing & the central section of a large country house. A look at the picture will tell you its a terrace of three houses, labels mean nothing.

force_ten

I think that at present your house would be classed as a Link Detached house as the link is not used as a living space

if the garage is granted chance of use and is converted to a utility room, play room Family room then this may make the house a semi detached rather than link detached

also you would need to consider if this change of use will devalue your house and you also need to consider the extra noise that bey be caused by this

if it is made into a Play room then you will may have children a large screen television games consoles and the excitement that goes along with them, if this is the side of the house where your living room is located it could be increased noise levels that you dont get from the present structure

MisterBaxter

Unless you are in a conservation area or your neighbour is planning on enlarging the extension significantly it will almost certainly be within Permitted Development so won't need planning. It would need building regulations and he is going to have to properly insulate etc. That's why I couldn't understand him keeping the garage door; while doing the other work to make it habitable he may as well build a wall with window on the front as keeping the garage door makes no practical sense unless he is intending using the front of the building as some sort of shed.

I would say that Party Wall Act would apply as your neighbour will need to cut into or affix the roof structure to the wall, they will also need to build new walls that will have to connect on to your wall. You could try to use the PWA to claim that the party wall in question is entirely in your ownership and is built wholly on your side of the boundary line (it was a detached house so that is a reasonable assumption) that being the case you could try to argue anything that it cut into the wall is trespass as it would have to cross on to your land; however as the garage has been there for a significant length of time and is presumably already cut into or affixed to the wall that argument may not stand up to scrutiny. If nothing else you could try to use the PWA to ensure that your neighbour at least does a proper job of it.

The presumed loss of value in your property is more difficult to assess and deal with. The garage was there when you bought the property so for the time it has been in your ownership it was never a truly detached property and could be argued that it was valued as such when you bought it (it may have been called a detached property but the valuer would or certainly should have considered the impact of the attached garage when producing the valuation). You may want to seek specialist legal advice on that matter although I'm sure that there is provision within PWA to deal with loss of property value as part of the compensation scheme.

DRP

force_ten wrote: »

I think that at present your house would be classed as a Link Detached house as the link is not used as a living space

if the garage is granted chance of use and is converted to a utility room, play room Family room then this may make the house a semi detached rather than link detached

also you would need to consider if this change of use will devalue your house and you also need to consider the extra noise that bey be caused by this

if it is made into a Play room then you will may have children a large screen television games consoles and the excitement that goes along with them, if this is the side of the house where your living room is located it could be increased noise levels that you dont get from the present structure

This is what I would be concerned about (plus whether the neighbour is doing it 'on the cheap'), rather than the notional value reduction of the property - which is probably nonexistent or neglible imo.

force_ten

DRP wrote: »

This is what I would be concerned about (plus whether the neighbour is doing it 'on the cheap'), rather than the notional value reduction of the property - which is probably nonexistent or neglible imo.

Estate agents will always charge a premium for a true detached property as they are seen as the most desirable property type by some people

the Link detached term that i used is a term popular with estate agents rather than Planners, and they would use it to try and make the house sound more desirable to the buyer, if the garage is converted into a living space it can no longer be classed as link detached and would need to be classed as a semi detached property

Mojisola

nolabels wrote: »

During conveyancing, our house was always valued as a detached house

Didn't you query this? Couldn't you see the garage attached to the house?

DRP

force_ten wrote: »

Estate agents will always charge a premium for a true detached property as they are seen as the most desirable property type by some people

the Link detached term that i used is a term popular with estate agents rather than Planners, and they would use it to try and make the house sound more desirable to the buyer, if the garage is converted into a living space it can no longer be classed as link detached and would need to be classed as a semi detached property

The value difference between a link-detached garage connected to the house and a ground floor living room connected is so marginal to a buyer, that imo it will make no difference if the house itself is desirable in other ways.

If there was a buyer out there who valued a detached house so highly over any other kind, then they wouldn't be going for the 'link detached' version...

nolabels

!!!!!! wrote: »

However PDR may have been removed for garage conversions. It is worth checking with the council whether this is the case. That is why I am rather sceptical about the neighbour's reasons for not removing the garage door.

Thank you !!!!!!. I plan to check this with Planning and Building Control. Most people are saying that garage conversions generally fall under Permitted Development, and I know that's correct in most circumstances, but ours is a bit of an unusual situation whereby the neighbour's garage conversion would turn our detached (or link-detached) house into a semi-detached, and it seems strange if that would simply be allowed without us being able to object.

nolabels

force_ten wrote: »

I think that at present your house would be classed as a Link Detached house as the link is not used as a living space

if the garage is granted chance of use and is converted to a utility room, play room Family room then this may make the house a semi detached rather than link detached

also you would need to consider if this change of use will devalue your house and you also need to consider the extra noise that bey be caused by this

if it is made into a Play room then you will may have children a large screen television games consoles and the excitement that goes along with them, if this is the side of the house where your living room is located it could be increased noise levels that you dont get from the present structure

Thank you for understanding the situation perfectly force ten. The garage doesn't bother us as it isn't a living space, but if the conversion is approved, it turns my house into a semi-detached and this can never be undone. It could impact the value of my house (detached houses are seen as considerably more desirable where I live) and also have noise implications so I'd like to do what I can to protect any adverse impact on my home, if indeed there is anything I can do.

Furts

I know of a situation where there was a detached double garage- each side was owned by the adjacent house. This became detached garages by altering them to create a gap down the middle, so clear daylight existed between the two. Strange things can happen when terminology and boundaries become involved.

In the case of OP's scenario I suggest there is a misunderstanding. A property has a market value based on its' physical attributes which includes location A property is not valued by its description. Hence talk of link detached. semi detached or detached is an irrelevance.

It might be that the garage conversion will de-value OP's property but that is life, no different to somebody building on a green field in front of somebody's house and spoiling the view. This too can and deemed de-valueing the house.