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Welcome. I recommend "How to find and buy a building plot" by Roy Speer and others. Try for most recent edition but some things may still be out of date. Has the plot already got planning permission? Measure the plot, is it the dimensions claimed on the paperwork/title plan? Are all the features (fence posts, walls, distances to other buildings etc) in agreement with the title plan? Are there services nearby? Who owns any land between plot and services? Any services under or over that will need moving? Who owns any grass verge between plot and road? Are any of the services at capacity/need upgrading before you will be allowed to connect to them? Is it uphill to the nearest sewer? Any restrictive covenants in the title deeds? Any rare animals/wildlife/archeology? Will soakaways work? If not are you allowed to put rainwater into the sewer? For not what will you do with it? Any known ground condition issues? Mine workings, contamination etc Any footpaths or neighbours claiming a right of access? Does the asking price make financial sense? Eg Would the cost of the plot plus cost to build end up more/less than the finished house is worth? Sure there are others.

Also worth a read.. https://www.taylorvinters.com/article/five-essential-factors-overage-agreements

I think it would also be reasonable for any "tax that accrues as a result of the development (eg the CIL or similar tax introduced in the future)" to be split in proportion to the overage. Otherwise projects could easily become unviable. Elsewhere on the forum someone posted data showing the CIL averages something like £20 per house.

In addition to Street view see if there are any tracks on the satellite view.

I know the access already existed but I think you only need PP for a new access if its a classified road eg If its not an A or B road then I don't think you need PP but may still need permission for a "dropped kerb". You don't always need PP for a hard surface either. You can avoid that by preventing rainwater running onto the road and deal with it on site. So it depends which way the ground slopes. If it slopes away from the road I don't think you need worry. It's quite allowed to lay tarmac if you collect the run off and feed it to a soak away or just let it soak onto the lawn. PS The dropped kerb thing is more to do with ensuring the pavement is strong enough to protect services that might be under it. Applies even if there is no actual kerb stone I believe.

Tin roof sheds can get very hot in summer. Not sure what to recommend. My shed stays impressively cool but it's got a concrete floor and tiled roof. Walls are oak boards, air gap, membrane, WBP, studwork filled with cheap loft insulation, more WPB.

Was it just the sign off that got missed or did they never notify/pay Building Control? How big is it? I think they probably should have been notified (even if the building is small, less than 15/30 sqm) because there is both drainage and electrical work? The electrician probably should have notified the BCO on his own even if the builders didn't notify them for the building. Ask if he did that? You could cover you backside by asking about getting retrospective Building Control Approval but that might open a can of worms. I would recommend getting a qualified electrician to do a "Periodic Inspection Report" to identify any electrical safety issues.

Last picture for the day.. Comparison of different filaments. Left to right.. Black PLA+ (As printed but I see it has some white fluff on it or something) Bronze coloured PLA (no actual bronze in it. As printed) Bronze filled PLA (80% real bronze, sanded and "polished") Iron filled PLA (80% real iron, sanded and "polished") Polished in quotes because it's not really hard enough to take polish. I tried T-Cut and Brasso. All were printed with 0.3 layer height and are about 45mm across. I'd like to try copper or brass filled PLA and may have found a source for cheap samples to play with.

Reasonable video here on different materials. PETG might be easier than ABS but I don't know much about it..

The default for fusion 360 is save to the cloud but it's only a few extra clicks to export to your hard drive as well and I do both. Most CAD programs have tools for collaborative projects and document management - which I don't need - but I can imagine they only work with the cloud.

Here is the rest of the spool holder mentioned. These two parts took about 30mins in total to draw up in total using Fusion 360. They are 100-120mm in diameter. The left hand one took 2 hours to print. The right hand will probably take about 2.5 hours. The axle will be some 8mm threaded rod and I plan on fitting an M8 Nut into the hexagonal recess on the right. I'm finding fusion 360 and Cura incredible given both are free for home users. Fusion 360 has impressive tools that make some things really easy. I'm thinking of trying something complicated like a glider wing with elliptical dihedral, elliptical sweep and wash out (eg twist). The lofting tools should make it all reasonably straightforward. Others have used vase mode to 3D print similar small chuck gliders.

Sorry about the picture quality but my phone isn't great. Here is a photo of my A8 after the upgrade to a metal frame, together with some parts printed on it since upgrading. Everything in orange on the printer was printed on the stock printer before tearing it down to upgrade. Took a lot of print time! The impossible dovetail was printed on the stock printer with a 0.3mm clearance between the two parts. It slides apart a bit too easily so perhaps I could have allowed less, say 0.2mm? The large part in the middle took 3.5 hours to print at 0.3mm layer height. It's part of a spool holder I'm making. Here is a gear and a part with a thread. The tooth pitch on the gear is only about 2mm. It mates nicely with it's partner but I've not tried running them together at speed or testing for wear. Would be OK for a hand cranked toy but I think it would needed to have a much coarser pitch to have any life in a motorised device. The threaded part has an M8 thread. Wasn't very clean when printed but I managed to screw an M8 metal nut onto it easily by hand. It will hold up for what I wanted it for but it's not going to be as strong as an injection moulded nylon bolt would be. It was printed with the part vertical so the threads are made of lots of incomplete circles that overhang and relies on layer adhesion for strength. Again larger thread diameters would probably work a lot better. Fusion 360 has tools that make gears and threads really simple.

My Anet A8 came with a hot bed and has ABS settings in the menu. I use the hotbed set to around 60C for PLA. Not sure what temperature ABS needs but it might take a long time for my hot bed to get up there. Mine runs on 12V and I think some people upgrade to a 24V system to improve the warm up time. My success rate with PLA is up to about 80-90%. eg most of the time I get usable prints but almost all have some minor defects. I'm certainly still ironing out the bugs. The two most annoying problems I have are: Warping. This can cause two problems. 1) The edges of flat objects lift off the bed so the base of the object isn't flat. worse case the head hits the print and the whole print comes unstuck. This can usually be fixed by adding a brim or raft around the object (Cura will do it automatically) so the lifting occurs away from the object. 2) Warping in mid air. Sometimes when printing something with an overhang the perimeter curls up. For example if printing a sphere after say 5-10 layers the unsupported edges curl up above the nozzle instead of staying flat. I need to do some more investigating to fix this. Could be I'm using too high a hot end temperature. Seems worse with PLA+ than PLA. The iron filled PLA was also a lot worse then the Bronze filled for some reason. I ended up wasting most of the iron sample trying to solve the problem. Circles on the first layer not sticking. When drawing the first layer the outlines of holes and other curves tend to pull off the bed as if the filament is shrinking. Slowing the printer right down to a crawl helps but I think I also have an issue with retraction - the extruder retracts the filament when moving from one circle to the next. I noticed that the problem occurs most when starting the next circle. I think the filament might be retracting too far so that when starting the next circle it takes awhile to get the flow going again. Sometimes the miss printed filament gets in the way and I have to abort the print. Usually if it gets past the first layer the rest is OK. Be prepared for long print times. Cura will estimate it for you but tends to under estimate print time by about 20%-30% If it says 2 hours I allow 3 hours including set up time or having to restart due to first layer issues.

I've not tried to print ABS but I've heard it's difficult. Some people say you need to put the printer in a temperature controlled cabinet but not sure how essential that is. I've printed PLA, PLA+ and some samples of metal filled PLA. Don't like PLA+ as it seems to warp a lot. Any overhangs can curl up higher than the nozzle which can hit it later. The Antique Bronze filled PLA printed ok but straight off the printer it looks like brown plastic. Sanding it exposes the metal but the effect isn't as good as I had hoped. Apparently putting prints in a rock tumbler with brass nuts improves the finish so I'm going to try that. The iron filled PLA isn't very impressive either straight off the printer. It's rather grey. It does stick to a magnet though. I plan to try rusting it to get an aged look. Be prepared for a steep learning curve. I still struggle to get some things to print. The first layer is frequently the problem. I've got a glass plate to make the bed dead flat and have tried hairspray, prittstick and blue painters tape on the bed. These are the three main things people recommend to improve adhesion. Blue tape seems to work best for me. One thing I had to learn was how to design parts so you don't need supports. Sometimes it's just faster or necessary to cut something in two in CAD, print both parts and super glue them together. Will try to post some photos when I get home.

Hummm, interesting. All I can add is .. be careful. If buying a run down property you don't want to argue too hard that it's totally derelict. Because if planners consider that use as a dwelling has been abandoned it could make it much harder to get planning permission to replace it. That said, it is quite hard for a building to loose its status as a dwelling but that happened to a farmhouse a few miles away from us.

It also occurs to me you may want to think about when you want the overage payment triggered. Should getting outline PP be enough to trigger payment? Full PP? Commencement of construction? What if someone gets PP for an extension but doesn't go ahead with it? Do they still have to pay the overage because the value has increased?

Perhaps of interest.. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5519543 ..although changing "future further separate residential development" to "future further separate dwelling(s)" might be better? Job for your solicitor really.

Perhaps you can limit the overage to "new dwellings" rather than all planning gains? I also heard a long time ago that the land registry like to limit overage to 30 years but I can't recall where I got that idea from

I wouldn't count on that. To claim adverse possession the land has to be fenced off "to the exclusion of all others" (their words). It certainly doesn't look like it meets that criteria so very unlikely they will let you go down that route. I would get title plans for all the land that surrounds the bit you think you own. That will tell you if you simply have a missing bit (it's not shown on any other plans) or if its likely there will be a dispute (it does appear on another title plan) Then take a look at .. "Correct a boundary mistake on a title plan" https://www.gov.uk/your-property-boundaries/correct-boundary-mistake-title-plan Given the good evidence you have I think you stand a good chance of getting it corrected.

For a complicated project you might need TWO sets of drawing/documents... Building Regs drawings: these provide information the BCO needs to be sure it will meet the regs. Plans will need to be to scale showing things like the interior layout, details of the foundations, cross sections through walls, calculations for structural elements (beams, roof members etc), calculations for insulation, drainage plan, specification for materials (example density of blocks). Construction drawings: these tell a builder what/how to construct the building. They may be based on the building regs drawing plus others. For example they might specify a make of bricks, roof tiles, windows or provide a list of floor coverings or figures that you want the builder to use as place holders in the quote (eg for the kitchen units and appliances). The builder should base his quote on this drawing package. You might even pay a Quantity Surveyor to draw up an estimate for you based on the construction drawings to compare with the builders quotes. Obviously you may not need construction drawings if you are planning to manage the build yourself or it's a simple project with no complications.

You don't need planning permission for "workers accommodation" on site (or even on adjacent land I think). However it must be just for building site workers. So everyone that lives there must do some work on the house and probably regularly. A few hours a day might be enough (?) but no children for example. If you just want a temporary place to live and won't actually be doing any regular work on the house then officially you need Planning permission. Some council's insist on this, others turn a blind eye or only insist on planning permission if someone complains. If you just put a van on the site without permission and the planners approach you about it your best bet is to reassure them it's only temporary and will be gone soon after completion. If they decide you need permission you should probably file a planning application for temporary permission. That could take many weeks to be determined but meanwhile you can still live in the van. If the application was rejected you could appeal and appeals can take 6-9 months to be heard and another few weeks for a decision to be made so you could probably delay enforcement for nearly a year. The planners are also unlikely to fight an appeal if they believe you will have finished the house and removed the van by the time it's heard.

Some info here suggests you may need planning permission for "change of use".. https://cornerstonebarristers.com/news/do-houseboats-need-planning-permission/

There are several different types of TS and different ways to set them up but that sounds wrong to me. I would expect the UFH to be connected to the secondary side of the TS not the primary. That said perhaps the connection to the store is bidirectional. eg The same pipe into the store is used to send water from the boiler to the TS and UFH can draw water back out of the TS when the boiler is off? Seems an odd arrangement to me. Our system does work the way you expected. The boiler heats the TS (primary circuit) and the TS heats the UFH/DHW (secondary circuit). The two circuits are totally independent except for the master electric switch. So the room stats control the UFH manifold and pump which draws heat from the TS but the boiler only fires up when the temperature of the TS falls far enough to trigger the TS stat.

Do let us know if the planners waive the need to provide evidence as that would be a lot simpler!

One approach would be to do it in two stages... 1) Create the basement as a "games room & storage". With care it appears you don't or may not need planning permission for this.. https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200130/common_projects/5/basements Even if you did need permission I'm pretty sure this would qualify as a residential extension exempt from the CIL. You would have to pay VAT at 20% on this work. When that work is done.. 2) Submit an application to convert the now extended house into flats. The floor area would stay the same so although not exempt from the CIL the bill should be zero. The work for this should qualify for 5% VAT. It would need some planning to ensure the work done for 1) can be reused for 2). Eg plan ahead so the work would meet Buildings Regs for 2). Perhaps think about the electrics, water heating etc. The planners do not need to know all the details.