Starting a kennel business.

Feral_Moon

I think you'll find you still need to apply for planning permission to build kennels and also possibly change of use from residential to commercial use. I don't think it's going to be as straight forward as you anticipate.

The only other way would be to do what somebody locally does, and take in home boarders into your actual house therefore no need to actually build kennels. Again, you'd still need a licence and adhere to certain rules & regulations which permit the dogs to access only certain rooms of the house as well as rules about children below a certain age not being allowed on the premises etc. I don't know the details, just the there are certain things to abide by.

Savvy_Sue

spadoosh wrote: »

From my understanding its the people that get permission and not the property naturally you need a suitable property (and all the requirements seem to be based on common sense and hygiene).

For change of use, the planning permission goes with the building: you may find it lapses if not used in that way within a certain amount of time, but that may just relate to permission to build / extend.

We (work) had to apply for change of use to turn a residential property into offices. I'm not sure if anyone buying it would have to re-apply to convert it back into a residential property - actually they'd have a fair bit of work on their hands as we're in the process of building a bridging room to join it to our main premises next door!

Fruittea

You can do a course OP. I did one may years ago and it was very helpful. Mine was a distance learning course and you could do a bit of volunteering at a local kennel which would give you an idea of what it's really like. It's far more work than you would expect so worth taking a peak at the courses before you commit. Here's an example of a course: http://www.animalcarecollege.co.uk/courses.php?course_ID=39

antrobus

spadoosh wrote: »

...The current situation is both working, have property with a fairly conservative £35000 equity in, mortgage affordability is around the £240,000 mark.... .

I am inclined to point out that your current 'mortgage affordability' is largely irrelevant, since it is based on the income that you are receiving from your current jobs. The implication would be that you both intend giving up those jobs to run this kennel business.

You need capital to fund a kennel business. You wll likely end up needing a commercial mortgage to fund it. The typical maximum LTV on a commercial mortgage is 70%. £35k won't get you very far.

You need more capital.

Ozzuk

As confirmed above, it is the property that requires planning and that stays with the property. The 'person' needs all the appropriate licenses though. Your approach of buying a house and hoping for planning is very high risk - not impossible though. Buying somewhere as remote as possible will help and you'd be wise to canvas any neighbours in areas you are considering moving to. Remember this is a business so you want to reduce risk via research - simply discounting neighbours you don't yet have is a little naive.

I'd start by talking to lenders to see if there are any issues lending on a semi-commercial property, and start building your business plan with all the things we've help identify.

For what it is worth I think it's a good idea and will wish you luck just do as much research as possible or you could find yourself with a property you can't do anything with.

Simpler yet similar lifestyle business idea...BnB. You don't even have to walk humans

spadoosh

antrobus wrote: »

I am inclined to point out that your current 'mortgage affordability' is largely irrelevant, since it is based on the income that you are receiving from your current jobs. The implication would be that you both intend giving up those jobs to run this kennel business.

You need capital to fund a kennel business. You wll likely end up needing a commercial mortgage to fund it. The typical maximum LTV on a commercial mortgage is 70%. £35k won't get you very far.

You need more capital.

This is the kind of information i was after, not a clue how you go about blagging a bank that you will earn x amount with a start up. The idea would be for one of us to remain working whilst the business grows eventually leading to us both at the kennels. Naturally if we go in for an offer on our current earnings its unlikely to be in line with our future earnings nor as secure. Yet i cant imagine its a business that you can only really do if you have lots of capital to start it up, its not really a high margin business.

Apart from LTV and guessing a higher rate % is there much difference between commercial and residential mortgages?

Thank you again, so need to be looking at saving up £40,000 to be in with a chance of doing this. Something to go off.

Ozzuk wrote: »

As confirmed above, it is the property that requires planning and that stays with the property. The 'person' needs all the appropriate licenses though. Your approach of buying a house and hoping for planning is very high risk - not impossible though buying an existing business would be next to impossible with the lowest price one ive seen recently being ~£600,000. Buying somewhere as remote as possible will help and you'd be wise to canvas any neighbours in areas you are considering moving to. Remember this is a business so you want to reduce risk via research - simply discounting neighbours you don't yet have is a little naive. Not as naive as expecting to be able to afford a ready built business. Any property that we would pick would be on the basis that it holds the best chances of getting the neccesserary consents.

I'd start by talking to lenders to see if there are any issues lending on a semi-commercial property, and start building your business plan with all the things we've help identify.

For what it is worth I think it's a good idea and will wish you luck just do as much research as possible or you could find yourself with a property you can't do anything with.

Simpler yet similar lifestyle business idea...BnB. You don't even have to walk humans It something we have considered, decided dogs give less poop though!

Depends how you look at risk. Probability/costs. Theres a good probability of getting change of use, the cost would be the house, which is still a house if all else fails and value would be similar. So it seems a lot more low risk than having to rob a bank or financing my grand kids off.

I appreciate your concerns for my risks and accept you only trying to help but i am also quite capable. Please understand that i didnt think of this 5 minutes ago and MSE isnt always my first port of call. Capable of doing a business plan, the 6 years studying business & accounting will help.

ali-t

OP look for the gap in the market. When i was looking for kennels for one of my dogs i found that lots of the kennels in my area wouldnt take a 'difficult' rottie. Some only took small dogs, others only did group exercise, some had very small runs and in others the owners didnt fill me with confidence.

the one we went with wasnt the cleanest or shiniest but she wasnt at all intimidated by my dog, he liked her, she shos her own dogs so i was able to see what she was like with her own dogs, she took police dogs in for hols and had death row dogs in the kennels.

if you are both confident with large dogs or ones with behaviour issues people will pay a premium for it. Good luck with your venture.

TBagpuss

I think the more afforadable way would be to go the property route without kennels and then get them built and permits once bought, however that could also be the most stressful and expensive way.

This bit jumped out at me - you'd need planning permission and I suspect that in a lot of places, the building and running of a kennels is something which might well be unpopular with the neighbours, unless you had a very isolated location, which might be unpopular with potential clients.

This of course would have the obvious risk that you might not get the permission, but also the risk that if you did, you might fall out with the neighbours in the process.

I'm sure this is something you'd take into account anyway in searching for a property, and I'm not sure what the way round it would be, other than trying to work towards taking over an existing business.

Taking on an existing business has another advantage in that you would then have accounts and other records to show a bank in applying for business loans etc.

You mentioned £600K for an existing business - looking at http://www.kennelsforsale.co.uk/,which lists sold prices, there seem to be quote a number available for significantly less than that, depending on location - so you might have the option of taking on an existing business if you were prepared to relocate (although the turnover figures suggest any net profit would be very low indeed...)

DogsBody

I assume you are already familiar with the CIEH model licence conditions? These are quite useful when planning construction of new buildings - the "better" the buildings the easier it will be to get your licence approved. Planning applications for kennels always count as "bad neighbour" development, so it's not just your adjoining landowners who have to be notified - pay a lot of attention to design and construction for soundproofing if you get to that stage!

I have 17 kennels and am licensed for 35 boarders, the annual turnover is in the region of 55k at 70-80% occupancy throughout the year. However I rent my buildings so my profit is less than 20k for 7 days a week, 12 hours a day! It can be hard, boring drudgery with a lot of responsibility (how good are you at spotting early stages of serious illnesses in a dog you might have only met the day before?). Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't recommend a one man operation, two reliable "staff" can both get a bit of time off and share the responsibility! And it is hard to get good, reliable staff for the variable hours and hostile working conditions at minimum wage, even though their hourly rate might be 3 times what you are getting ;-)