Reverting House with annexe into one dwelling

Jcqlou

Hi,

just completed on a house with a self contained annexe attached to the side of the main property. It has its own address, council tax, water meter and energy meters but it is deemed as one title on land registry. 

We want to revert it back to one single dwelling so our plans are to knock through to the annexe (currently only accessible via its own front door) and have it as one large kitchen and convert the kitchen in the main house to a utility room. 

I have no idea where to start in terms of converting it back to one property so any help would be appreciated! At the moment we have two addresses and two different energy suppliers for the house and annexe, and two different council bands!

lincroft1710

I can only comment on the Council Tax aspect. Are you saying that you intend to convert the whole annex into a large kitchen. What alterations would you make to convert the existing kitchen into a utility? 

theartfullodger

Does existing annex have planning permission & building regs OK?? 

I'd explore position with planning dept first: And ask mortgage brokers if it's worth more as "main & annex" or "combined".

Current position with utility bills, broadband, council tax please?

martindow

You need to check whether planning permission is needed as you are turning two dwellings into one.  Some local authorities are inclined to refuse permission as they want as many dwellings as possible.

SDLT_Geek

Jcqlou said:

Hi,

just completed on a house with a self contained annexe attached to the side of the main property. It has its own address, council tax, water meter and energy meters but it is deemed as one title on land registry. 

We want to revert it back to one single dwelling so our plans are to knock through to the annexe (currently only accessible via its own front door) and have it as one large kitchen and convert the kitchen in the main house to a utility room. 

I have no idea where to start in terms of converting it back to one property so any help would be appreciated! At the moment we have two addresses and two different energy suppliers for the house and annexe, and two different council bands!

If multiple dwellings relief was claimed for stamp duty land tax on the purchase (assuming you bought in England) then the works you propose would cause a clawback of that relief.

stig

You might also want to check if it was worthwhile to claim multiple dwellings relief on your stamp duty liability, if you haven’t already done so - multiple dwellings relief assigns half the purchase price to each ‘dwelling’ and calculates the SDLT due on each separately, so you get to take advantage of two nil rate bands. Just a thought, you have twelve months to amend your return to claim it if appropriate.

lincroft1710

martindow said:

You need to check whether planning permission is needed as you are turning two dwellings into one.  Some local authorities are inclined to refuse permission as they want as many dwellings as possible.

In most cases, planning authorities do not count an annex as a separate dwelling and if pp is given for an annex, it will have a condition saying it cannot be sold separately from the main house 

Jcqlou

lincroft1710 said:

I can only comment on the Council Tax aspect. Are you saying that you intend to convert the whole annex into a large kitchen. What alterations would you make to convert the existing kitchen into a utility? 

Yes - current annexe contains a kitchen, bathroom, small bedroom and living area. We would like to convert the whole area into one kitchen space and create access from the main house. The current kitchen would be mostly used for access to the annexe, and we will wall off a section to create a small utility cupboard (so will only have washing machine and storage units)

Jcqlou

theartfullodger said:

Does existing annex have planning permission & building regs OK?? 

I'd explore position with planning dept first: And ask mortgage brokers if it's worth more as "main & annex" or "combined".

Current position with utility bills, broadband, council tax please?

Yes, we received all the relevant building docs when we were going through with the purchase from the sellers solicitors. Also plan on speaking with building control throughout.

Understandable in regards to value of house but definitely seems more of a liability than an asset right now! The current size of the kitchen in the main house is a massive negative and our mortgage broker agreed with our plans. 

Currently paying two council tax’s and utilities. No broadband as we’re not living there yet. Spoke with local council prior to purchasing and they said building control needs to state it as one dwelling before they can reband. 

Jcqlou

SDLT_Geek said:

If multiple dwellings relief was claimed for stamp duty land tax on the purchase (assuming you bought in England) then the works you propose would cause a clawback of that relief.

We weren’t initially aware of the relief so had the funds ready for the full stamp duty bill. We are now making sure we keep that money unspent ready for when the tax man comes knocking 😂

Jcqlou

stig said:

You might also want to check if it was worthwhile to claim multiple dwellings relief on your stamp duty liability, if you haven’t already done so - multiple dwellings relief assigns half the purchase price to each ‘dwelling’ and calculates the SDLT due on each separately, so you get to take advantage of two nil rate bands. Just a thought, you have twelve months to amend your return to claim it if appropriate.

Our solicitors sorted this for us! We presumed it would be a standard amount for what we paid as a whole but we ended up getting the relief. I believe we will end up having to pay the remaining amount once it’s considered as one dwelling though 😭