Valuing a Basement in a Shared Freehold Property

eddddy

Tom99 wrote: »

The other freeholders do no have to offer to grant you a lease extending to the ground beneath your existing demise.
If I was one of those freeholders given the likely disturbance and also risk of structural problems with the existing foundations I would refuse whatever the price.
I think you should test their likely reaction to your scheme before spending any money.

Being a Victorian building, the ground floor is likely to have high ceilings.

So if headroom in the basement is limited, instead of excavating the basement...

... it may be possible to raise the level of the floor on the ground floor.


That may be easier/cheaper than excavating the basement, but that's still very expensive, so only viable in expensive areas.

Tom99

eddddy wrote: »

Being a Victorian building, the ground floor is likely to have high ceilings.
So if headroom in the basement is limited, instead of excavating the basement...
... it may be possible to raise the level of the floor on the ground floor.
That may be easier/cheaper than excavating the basement, but that's still very expensive, so only viable in expensive areas.

Looking at the OP I don't think there is an existing basement.

Doozergirl

zagubov wrote: »

I've seen several attempts at this in London, but it's expensive, pretty unpopular with neighbours, and can go spectacularly wrong.

Do all mortgage lenders and insurers in the building need to be on board as well as the homeowners, because I'm not sure I've heard of this ever happening in a divided property? Good luck with getting it all agreed.

To be honest, it looks like it would be nothing but unnecessary and unwanted trouble, a bit like trying to climb mount Everest from the inside, using a toothpick.

As martin says, look elsewhere.

Oh, it's happened in divided property. I distinctly remember a couple in a ground floor conversion flat who managed to destroy their home in a spectacular fashion, as well as their neighbour's above and are still paying the mortgage as neither the the builder's, nor their home insurance would pay out.

Fact is, if you're not prepared to spend thousands doing a proper test of the viability of it, it's not worth starting in the first place, because there will be plenty of professional fees to pay well before a shovel hits the ground even on a freehold property.