House with a large workshop

MarieMoo

Hi

Just wondering if anyone knew anything about this kind of thing.
So basically my husband runs his own garage working on trucks, vans etc. Together with his rent for his workshop and our mortgage payments we are paying around £2000 a month.

He had a thought about buying a house with some land with a workshop on it so he can live and work at the same place so we'd end up paying around the same a month but he'd be home more and we're not paying two different payments a month.

I'm struggling to find anywhere like that at the moment in the area we live, most are like double garage type sizes, or in the middle of suburbia where people won't want trucks coming up and down all hours. We would need a decent road in and he needs the workshop to be a decent height so he can get a truck inside.

Does anyone know what it's like to maybe buy a house with some land and then get planning permission for a large workshop? Or maybe buying land and then building both a house and workshop on it? We did consider just buying a workshop to start with a maybe living in a mobile home type thing until we could get a house sorted but again, planning permission.

I'm brand new to anything like planning permission or building your own house or workshop and google isn't really bringing up much in the way of help.

Thanks x

spadoosh

Planning permission is the hurdle.

Not so much for the physical buildings but for the purpose of the buildings.

What youre looking for is pretty specific in that you will need a residential property with a workshop that has been granted B2 planning permission (industrial use in motor industry). Those kinds of properties are going to be pretty few and far between, id imagine most that are for sale are for the whole business too.

You could try buying a residential property then applying for planning but youll need to do a lot of research in to the likelihood of it being accepted, few people like the idea of having knackered vans/trucks and parts lying around. Id say this is a particularly risky option.

The kind of property youre talking about sounds a lot more possible in a rural location and buying something with the warehouse space already there shouldnt be too difficult (think agricultural barns) but its the permission to run it as a mechanics that will always cause the problems.

Easiest option is buying an establised business/house although its likely to cost more than the DIY method but a lot safer.

Davesnave

Oddly enough, I have friends selling something similar to what you want, but theirs comes with two residential building plots and at present they are not for splitting the package. Besides, the garage part is on the small side.

Their situation probably isn't that uncommon though: i.e. a residential plot with a redundant filling station and associated workshop. I have certainly seen these along main roads whilst looking for other property, as the number of filling stations outside large towns and cities has declined markedly over the last 20 years.

tacpot12

Would another option be to move house so you can live much closer to his existing workshop? I doubt a single property is going to save money, and having two payments going out should not be that difficult to manage especially as the workshop is a business expense that will go through your husbands accounts.

So the big advantage of a single property seems to be "having him home more". Moving closer to the existing workshop would reduce his travel time, he might even be able to walk home for lunch.

davidmcn

As above, I think you'd be best to look for existing sites rather than trying to get planning. Generally the planners won't want to mix residential with the more antisocial types of commercial use.

The only exception I can remember seeing for anything similar was one where the operator argued they were running a 24/7 vehicle recovery service so wanted someone to be living on site so they could deal with urgent calls (and that was for adding a house to a semi-rural garage).

AdrianC

When you say "trucks", I presume you mean 3.5t+, so AIUI he'd need to add an operators licence to the planning permission for a commercial vehicle workshop, straight off. In a residential area, it all sounds like a great way to get straight onto the wrong side of the neighbours...

Does he have to be in "suburbia"? Or could he find somewhere a bit further out?

Mela322

One other thing to factor in is, how would the move affect his business? Seems like moving could cost you more in the long run.

MarieMoo

AdrianC wrote: »

When you say "trucks", I presume you mean 3.5t+, so AIUI he'd need to add an operators licence to the planning permission for a commercial vehicle workshop, straight off. In a residential area, it all sounds like a great way to get straight onto the wrong side of the neighbours...

Does he have to be in "suburbia"? Or could he find somewhere a bit further out?

I've been looking for further out as like you say suburbia is no good around trucks, he currently rents a workshop on a farm so we'd be looking for something similar really, on the outskirts of town so we don't annoy people lol. Yeah it's big proper trucks he deals with lol.

MarieMoo

tacpot12 wrote: »

Would another option be to move house so you can live much closer to his existing workshop? I doubt a single property is going to save money, and having two payments going out should not be that difficult to manage especially as the workshop is a business expense that will go through your husbands accounts.

So the big advantage of a single property seems to be "having him home more". Moving closer to the existing workshop would reduce his travel time, he might even be able to walk home for lunch.

Definitely having him home more, he works a lot of hours and it would be nice if he could nip home for lunch, for the kids bedtimes etc.

Also I would love a small holding type of place, I have chickens on the back garden, love animals and am wanting to add vegetable patches so it'd be nice , in an ideal world, if we could incorporate all of that into one site where we live and work x

getmore4less

Where are you looking?

By that I mean rough location and the types of of resources.

rightmove won't be good enough.

gettingtheresometime

Where in the world are you?