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Neighbour wants to convert garage that is attached to our property

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  • zaax
    zaax Posts: 1,914 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Talk to building control they are very adminable. There needs al lot more to be done if it to be habitable area.
    Do you want your money back, and a bit more, search for 'money claim online' - They don't like it up 'em Captain Mainwaring
  • wellused
    wellused Posts: 1,678 Forumite
    I approached the council planning office to enquire about altering the roof on my carport once the next doors building work was done, the first question that they asked was "will it increase the total volume of the carport" to which I said that it would, her eyes lit up and she said "you will need to submit a form the fee is £80", I thought about the roof and realised that in fact it would make the volume of the carport smaller, so I said "hang on I got that wrong it will actually make it smaller", "oh!” she said then you don't need planning permission", she seemed quite deflated to be missing out on £80.
  • rach_k
    rach_k Posts: 2,254 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I think most people would be concerned about devaluing the house by making it into a semi. Has the neighbour actually considered this? It's not just your house that will become a semi; his will too! You could point out that he will be devaluing his own home and it might be better just to build a new wall for himself.
  • wellused
    wellused Posts: 1,678 Forumite
    I'd insist on it a lightweight garage roof and a propper roof with insulation and plasterboard will be much heavier, say that your wall isn't up to it and that you don't want him connecting to it.
  • lstar337
    lstar337 Posts: 3,443 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    nolabels wrote: »
    Yes, we queried it but there were no formal documents to be found. It was just accepted as a quirk of the street. Many houses on the street have this. Even our garage is attached to the neighbour's house on the other side.
    So you are linked on the other side via your garage too?

    Seems odd to cling so hard to the 'detached' label when it seems your house barely qualified for it in the first place.

    If your neighbour plans to keep the garage door as a facade, then I don't see what is really changing. Especially from the viewpoint of a perspective buyer,that is if you can get them to believe it is 'detached' anyway.
  • wellused wrote: »
    I don't want to steal your thread but I have a similar question if I may ask it, when I bought my semi detached house which was over 20 years ago now it had a shared car port constructed between it and the next door neighbours, the gap between houses was 16 foot and so the previous owners had built steel channels into the brickwork of each house spanning the gap between houses which supported the carport roof. About 8 years ago my neighbour came to me and said that they intended to build an extension to the side of their house where the carport was and did I want to do mine too, I didn't want to go to the expense and so declined, I asked if that meant that we would have to remove the carport and they said that it wasn't necessary as the builders would build the steel supports into the new wall and cut their ends off so that my side of the carport could remain intact. The question that I have now that I have seen this thread is will their extension wall now become a party wall as my carport is built into it?

    According to the Party Wall Act Explanatory Booklet, a wall is also a 'party wall' (Type B) if it stands wholly on one owner's land, but is used by two (or more) owners to separate their buildings, so from my understanding, yes their extension wall that's connected to your carport is a party wall.
  • rach_k wrote: »
    I think most people would be concerned about devaluing the house by making it into a semi. Has the neighbour actually considered this? It's not just your house that will become a semi; his will too! You could point out that he will be devaluing his own home and it might be better just to build a new wall for himself.

    The problem we face is that he seems to want to cut his costs by using our wall instead of building his own. Others on the street who have built side extensions in place of their garages have built their own wall, thus detaching from their neighbour. This is also what we plan to do when we come to build our side extension in future. We have put this point across to him, so we're really hoping he sees sense eventually before the damage is done!
  • nolabels
    nolabels Posts: 15 Forumite
    edited 22 December 2015 at 11:36AM
    lstar337 wrote: »
    So you are linked on the other side via your garage too?

    Seems odd to cling so hard to the 'detached' label when it seems your house barely qualified for it in the first place.

    If your neighbour plans to keep the garage door as a facade, then I don't see what is really changing. Especially from the viewpoint of a perspective buyer,that is if you can get them to believe it is 'detached' anyway.

    To all those saying labels don't matter: they may not wherever you live, but they do in our area. force ten explained it with figures:
    force_ten wrote: »
    anybody that thinks you don't pay a premium for a detached house is delusional

    the market says that a detached house can carry a premium of between 9-18% over the equivalent semi detached house with a detached bungalow carrying the largest premium

    so even at 9% a true detached house at the national average of 197K would attract a near 18K premium


    Keeping a garage door facade doesn't keep things the same. The neighbour made it sound like it was because he wanted to keep the external appearance the same for our sake but it may be that he just doesn't want to bother with building regulations, in which case he may not bother with things like adequate sound proofing which will impact us. He says he wants to convert the space into a utility. Are we supposed to be ok with having to hear their washing machine and dryer, especially if they locate it against our wall? And what's to say they (or future owners) won't develop it into something else in the future? A play room, games room, cinema room with surround sound etc... the noise implications do matter.

    There are others on the street who have built side extensions in place of their garages and they have done the sensible thing of building the extension with a gap between the properties. We also plan to do it that way when we build our extension in the future, so we'll be removing our garage that connects to the neighbour on the other side. If our neighbour did it this way instead of wanting to stay attached to us, we'd all become true detached properties and even though a narrower side extension would provide a little less space, the values of the properties would benefit and everybody would win.

    And as for whether we can call ourselves detached right now... perhaps the correct term might be link-detached due to the garages, but the valuers during conveyancing classed the house as detached. There is no substantial structure to the garages. There is about 2.5m between the houses and in many cases, there is just a type of suspended roof and garage door to link the space between the houses, that's it. So there isn't even anything much to knock down if anyone wanted to get rid of the garage.

    Party%20wall.jpg
  • System
    System Posts: 178,353 Community Admin
    10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    I have to say that 2.5m is a very small space; no wonder he doesn't want to put in a new extra wall, taking even more off his intended new room. I would certainly object to his plans given what you've said about the impact of noise - washing machine vibration? No thank-you!
    This is a system account and does not represent a real person. To contact the Forum Team email forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com
  • Loanranger
    Loanranger Posts: 2,439 Forumite
    I think that you should explain to the neighbour that he will devalue HIS property by making HIS house a semi.
    This may make him realise he needs to build his own wall for his extension and have clear air between the two properties.
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