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Other things you need to find out being a rural plot. Drainage. Both foul and rainwater. Is the plot big enough to support a treatment plant and associated drainage field and also a soakaway for wainwater. Taking into account building regs distance from buildings, boundaries and each other? If not is there an agreement in place with adjacent land owners for a drainage field under their land? Have percolation tests been done to prove the viability of land drainage (and calculate the size)? Cost of getting mains water to the plot, or alternative viable private supply? Cost of getting an electricity supply? Access to the plot including rights over any private tracks etc. If it is shared access over a private track how many houses use it already? when it gets to 5 houses it is required to be upgraded, surfaced to proper standards and then adopted.

This arrangement happens all the time in England. Conditional Contract or Option Agreement are the standard means. With a conditional contract, you exchange contracts at an agreed price subject to, in your case, obtaining planning consent for erection of a new dwelling etc. There will be other constraints to cover time allowed, appeals, fencing and boundaries, access, working times etc. Once the conditions have been met you are obliged to complete the purchase.

Unless you have someone in mind to take on the second plot, just offer for the one you like best. Major hassle and risk once you step outside the self builder role.

Hi Mike, I just finished reading all your blog to date. Thanks for writing it, I've found it really useful. The IKEA wardrobes are not beyond redemption - you can push the backing off from inside so that the nail heads stick up a bit and then pull them out with a claw hammer. Then get it square and renail. Having them squint like that would drive me nuts! Can I ask a question about your wall finish? You've done what I plan on doing and boarded it out yourself. Have you also done the taping/filling of the joins yourself and if so were you able to do that without sanding? Is there a final finish coat of plaster to go on top after that stage? I hope you don't mind me pointing out that there's a couple of dodgy bits I can see in the plaster around your rooflight reveals - are these getting edged and skimmed later or have they been done but just got bashed during construction on site?

Thanks Dave, yes that was all covered in the deeds and planning consent. The reason I wanted more info about surrounding landowners was to check how robust some of the agreements are. I'm sorry that I can't say any more at this stage and am being a bit cryptic, but I'm not wanting to give the location away! There's nothing there that's causing me concern re the water, drainage or services though. I know it all needs checking to make sure it's still current but it seems good so far.

It is quite amazing how much information can be gleaned with some cross referencing.

Your lawyer could help with this. I've found Scottish lawyers to be much more helpful than English in many ways, and much cheaper. Having both plots lets you choose the better one, and consider optimising the other. And design the drains as one. Working Space during construction has a value. Remember you get your vat back. Claim it early for cashflow at the expense of some finishings vat. Can your lawyer write in that, as you are designing both, the payment for the second plot is delayed? Eg half on phase 1 completion, and the rest when you sell? Presumably the original permission is public so you can copy or alter it. Is there any reason to doubt it will get permission. Btw we looked at some awful plots in Aberdeenshire etc. Had permission and the brochures looked great. But were boggy, full of stumps and more. Have you researched why they didn't sell, why the owner hasn't kept permission alive or renewed it? Sounds odd.

If you can afford it, I would buy both. Then you can have more time to decide which half is best to build your house and sell the other. You might even be able to impose conditions on what is built on the other plot that way. Or just build one. Someone here bought a "double plot" and has only built one house and has a much bigger garden and no adjacent neighbour. He could likely sell it at any time but unless he needs the cash from doing so why would he?

I agree you need to protect against this financial risk and I wonder if it's a sign the seller really means subject to a scheme they like being approved. The biggest benefit of buying both plots is only realised if you're going to develop at the same time - sharing costs for prelims, groundworks, services, having same trades on both at similar times, less material waste etc so I'd focus on just getting the most out of the plot that works best for you.

Sure, but the law is different here in Scotland - we have a lot more protection when we buy.

This would make me VERY nervous - you pay out for all the planning application, surveys and reports that may be needed to support the application, it gets approved, and then they pull out, up the price and you can't afford to buy and are out of pocket for the planning. Something needs to be put in place to protect you.

And ask for the whole garage

Good grief, I reckon even I could lay blocks better than that!

Good that you stopped that one from doing anything more on site tbf. That wall is (was) just shockingly bad. Onwards indeed

Great stuff Ben. I very much like the printed wall panels in the shower; I've always wanted to have some with my own photographs but then I looked at the custom prices 8 years ago ! And I love the lack of clutter / junk. If you could put a pin in the diary for an update at Easter 2027 after "one year living in it", that would be really appreciated here - especially I think running costs and how the solar has worked; I think you will be in a running profit. My nerd interest is whether the running costs will change after the structure all dries out. This looks like a forever house, sort of a move to Tracy Island.

It's a surprisingly difficult question to answer simply, for a number of reasons, mainly what's included in the build cost? What I can say is that we have done it for the amount we sold a similar-sized but less well-equipped house in the same area. That's taking account of the old house sale and new plot purchase costs, 18 months' house rental, planning, architects fees, utilities, the build itself, kitchen, bathrooms, solar PV and batteries, decorating, and landscaping. Then again, had we not moved we'd have been needing new kitchen, bathrooms, ASHP, and other expenses in our old house before long. Our per m2 figure is about £3,900, £3,200 excluding landscaping. We could have done it for a lot less but we consciously chose to spend what we had and made some expensive choices: bespoke single-storey design, zinc roof, upmarket kitchen, 3G windows, high levels of insulation, 15kW PV, 27 kWh batteries, oak joinery, etc. etc. We were lucky enough to be able to indulge ourselves, but that does mean our costs may not be a reliable guide, sorry.

This was a fantastic blog, I've really enjoyed reading it and learned a lot. Your house is beautiful. Congratulations and thanks for taking the trouble to write such a comprehensive and detailed write-up. Is it rude to ask roughly what it all cost in the end? You know - just for people like me who have entirely unrealistic expectations 😂

Thank you, thats nice of you to say. I went to a self build show at the NEC when we were waiting for planning permission. When talking to MVHR companies one of them took one look at our plans and said “get holes designed into those steels for your ducts”, which we duly did by making sure the timber frame company designed them in. I didn’t ask them to but they also designed the metal web joists so they all line up too. Bloody marvellous.

Defo best advice. We always buy a battered upvc door off gumtree etc local to the projects and only swap that out at the very last minute. Have one here atm covered in Passive Purple, so I doubt gumtree will work to get it sold back on now lol. For the sliders @Benpointer, I usually make a plywood shoe that sits over the threshold and keeps the slider open fully, making sure that trades step on that and not the shiny new threshold with muddy boots etc. You simply lift this on/off at the start and end of each day, and make yourself sheriff of the keys so no numpty can open it and wreck it for you. You need eyes in the back of your head as you get the niceties installed, as otherwise even a simple extension lead getting wound back through an open door or window will remove the paint off the frame.

Nothing really, may be higher sides so the overall height was increased. The original designs are taller and possibly use 7m sheets( very difficult to source up here). But it's not budgged with over 7 or 8 big storms may well extend it in the years to come.once the rest of the projects are out of the way.

Presumably the caravan has minimal insulation compared to the cabins so they should be even better. I hope everyone else living on site in a caravan is aware of the brilliance of A2A. Right now we've got some early morning sun producing around 1kW from our 3.2kW PV array and there's still a couple of hundred Watts to spare while our two A2A units are busy warming the outbuilding from 16oC overnight setback up to 19oC. What other type of heating system could manage this? I never thought it'd be practical to use a modest amount of PV to power space heating - especially not in the first week of January - but I'm glad that I've been proved wrong.

Cryptic.. good luck