What counts as reception rooms?

Sapindus

In my house the rooms are arranged in a circuit.  You come through the front door into the entrance hall.  Then it goes: Kitchen, utility room, playroom (large), study (small), living/dining (large) and back to the hall.  How many "reception" rooms is this?  Someone told me once that only a room opening off the hall is a reception room but the internet says "a room people can sit down in".

Auti

I would say 3 - playroom, study, living/dining. The kitchen and utility room have fixed uses and cannot be used for anything else as is the hall. The other 3 can be whatever you want them to be so, in my opinion, are reception rooms

bobster2

Two - your playroom and living/dining room.

A reception room is somewhere that in theory you could entertain guests and sit them down. Excluding the kitchen.

If listing for sale you would say that your downstairs has 2 reception rooms, a study, kitchen and utility room.

eddddy

Why are you asking? Is it just out of curiosity? Or maybe because you're planning to sell the house?

If it's for selling, when you get the 3 or 4 estate agents to come round for a look, ask each of them how they would describe the property in their listing. (They might have varying opinions.)


The estate agents' decisions will be driven by things like...

• Not wanting potential buyers to be disappointed when they view. Ideally, you want buyers to be impressed when they view. So, for example, if a buyer is expecting that a house will have 3 reception rooms, but when they view they think that's an exaggeration - it can gets things off to a very bad start.

• And there's the law about giving misleading information. (i.e. Looking at your house, how many reception rooms would a 'reasonable person' say it had?)

propertyrental

Is this for insurance purposes? The important thing is to declare the number/type of rooms accurately. Often they require nb of bedrooms, nb of bathrooms (incl or exc separate loos) nb of kitchens, nb of reception or 'other' rooms.

In your case there is 1 kitchen and then either 1 utility + 3 receptions (play, study, living), or 4 'other' rooms (utility, play, study, living).

But you need to read the definitions provided by then insurance company.

If this is for marketing purposes, then it does not really matter as long as the total number -of rooms is advertised.

Sapindus

Thanks - it's preparatory to putting the house on the market. So yes, I will find out when the estate agents come round, but looking at the forms they want filled in to request a visit it asks for number of reception rooms so I got to wondering. 

BikingBud

Does it really matter?

EAs will write according to their own spin and potential buyers will look at the space and consider how it might work for them.

Calling something the lounge, boudoir, library, train room, sewing room, pleasure dome or whatever is meaningless, especially as "reception" rooms could ordinarily expected to be down stairs and you appear not to consider upstairs, where rooms can also be multi purpose.

Personally I would be much more interested in a layout/plan that accurately shows the flow and the sizes.