Party Wall - Linked detatched

cheamuser

I am about to buy a house but can see that it has 2 garages out of which 1 is attached to neighbor's garage. The second Garage has outside wall, which is also the load-bearing outside wall for the house.

We want our house to be detached, completely. The agent says we can leave space between existing common wall and erect another parallel wall; leaving about 2/3 feet from the common wall.

a. Will that make the house detached?
b. Will Council permit this change since the eve will have to drop at new wall for this to become really detached house. This will change the front elevation.
c. What else can go wrong.

The agent is selling it as a detached house but it seems to me that there will never be a way to make it a detached house.

Thanks in advance for all the helpful advice.

Davesnave

Anything is possible, at a price. What the agent isn't able to tell you is the likely cost of these changes, which would need assessment by a structural engineer, as well as being likely to need planning permission.

A link-detached house joined to the neighbour by a garage, or garages, is a compromise, which you'd seek to negate by compromising on usable space instead. Leaving aside planning issues, the cost of doing this may therefore not be reflected in an increase in value.

Furts

I am aware of a home where the link detached garages were separated to create two detached garages. This was done at some expense. Building a new "boundary wall" inside the one garage was probably bodged - I am not aware of a new foundation going in, Fortunately the other neighbour was co-operative to allow alterations to their garage roof - this now needed cut roof tiles and a verge detail. Had they known the wall may have been bodged then they were crazy to agree to the proposition.

The bottom line is the work had a cost, it was fortunate the neighbours agreed, and it made a difference to the value of the homes - it probably decreased the values by a noticeable amount.

Grenage

That's a lot of money and effort to change the way a house is described.

Could you? Yes.
Should you? Hell no.

Furts

Grenage wrote: »

That's a lot of money and effort to change the way a house is described.

Could you? Yes.
Should you? Hell no.

With my example money did not come into it. It is moving into areas beyond my knowledge but the people were Exclusive Brethren, and were unable to have any physical connection to their neighbour's property. I respect this, but it did create an unusual scenario when viewed from a building, or estate agents, perspective.