Mania

Hi Magutosh Thank you for your post, its really helpful. I hope you are getting on well. We are at the stage of discharging our conditions (landscape, Suds, Water Usage & Contamination) and having our construction drawings put together, speaking to our Structural Engineer and I think the next step is to start our search for a Building Inspector! I realise your post was a little while ago, but for anyone else reading this now - based on his experience our SE recommended to follow the same course as Peter W did above, especially as our LA are known to give a date and not a time so builders are known to be waiting on site all day. I was interested to you reference to Protek and looked them up. I think I have missed something - do I need to find a company like Protek before we start our build (est. 1-2 years time)? Is there anything else I should be doing in respect of the build and work toward final sign off, any tips please? All will be gratefully received.

We used kitchen door workshop for our apartment and I was able to order the exact sizes needed for each space. I ordered the finished white MDF shelves etc separately. When we moved into this place (to be knocked down) 3 years ago, I just bought shop fittings - rails and shelving from eBay and think I'd explore the same for our future build. Sadly I expect there may be a lot more such listings during this difficult time as shops close.

You aren't missing anything. The funds in the offset account will be fluid for you to draw as required up to e.g. £100k. The interest rate will be fixed and monthly repayments can be too, but assuming it will be a repayment mortgage you can also opt for the monthly repayments to be reduced as the principle amount comes down so that you can accumulate a bit more for the build fund! Alternatively the "overpayments" can sit on your mortgage account until you decide if you want to reduce your mortgage term instead (by keeping the monthly payments the same). If you need further borrowing most offset mortgage lenders will provide you with additional borrowing at the same rate. But I don't see any harm in borrowing a bit extra as a buffer from the outset if you can because as you say you will only pay interest on the difference and can repay the principle as permitted if you don't utilise all the borrowed funds. The only downsides I can think of are if you decide you want to reduce the principle, only 10% per annum is typically allowed, you can pay off more after the term. And I am sure you know about the early repayment charges in case you commit to a fixed term. Arrangement fees sit around the £999 - £1499 mark. You are very fortunate as offset rates are low at the moment! If you can get it with an existing lender you may even be able to avoid survey fees. Good luck.

That looks amazing! I will check it out - thanks

Hi I was just using design software to refine our house plans to submit an amendment to our application and thought itshare that before we appointed an architect I was drawing our house plans on graph paper and using tracing paper for floors (this was very painful when making changes!) until I came across software which is aimed at self-builder's. As a complete novice and without training (which is always available) with a bit of trial and error the software enabled me to upload a photograph of my plans and transfer them to scale, add floors, rooms and manipulate the plans to include windows (colours, types, etc) doors, room heights, wall and floor / carpet colour (with actual paint manufacturer / carpet codes), add kitchen cupboards, wardrobes, sofas, dining tables, bathroom suits actually available in the market etc. They will even add items specified not in their available catalogue under each type required to create a house visual so you can update your design in that level of detail. For a £5 a month no contract fee I found NuVuw to be invaluable. I think they have a free trial on at the moment: https://www.nuvuw.com It even has a project management tools built in which I plan to use for our next phase.

Thank you all.

Please can you help and confirm my research? Will we be exempt from paying council tax from when we demolish our bungalow until the replacement dwelling is complete?

Thank you.

As additional information Ecology confirmed that they would accept equity in another property to qualify for interest only.

Really? I think we will be digging within 3 metres of the fence.

An interim update: I spoke to our existing lender - we have opted to stay with our flexible product. Thank heavens we didn't commit to the transfer - that was close. They do not offer self-build mortgages at present, he said that could all change in the future, hopefully it can be a product transfer by the time we are ready. I called Ecology for information. The representative advised to borrow a buffer amount from our existing lender now as it will be cheaper, but if we do that now and start repaying, surely it isn't that beneficial especially as we will have to transfer the slightly reduced principle amount to a self-build mortgage when we start our project anyway. For any newbies reading this post the Ecology rep also advised that the new build would need to energy efficient with a SAP rating of 85+ which our architect would be able to advise on. They would also need the standard evidence of income, value of the plot and projected final value of the build. Arrangement takes 4-5 weeks including survey & the early repayment charge will apply before 2 years. No word from our Financial Advisor.. All of our efforts will go into saving now, the holiday cancellations / refunds from this year will help. Thank you all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The boundaries are clearly visible. And yes we are leaving them. We repaired fences both sides after discussing with both and they were fine with that.

Thank you Joe90. I am looking at party wall agreements now, it looks like we will have to serve up to a year in advance of the build... being detached we won't be encroaching / or doing anything to shared walls / boundaries with either of neighbours, in fact there will be more of a gap either side. I am nervous about having to pay out for yet another surveyor of their choice in case the lady decides to dispute. Is there any sense in us to get a surveyor in to confirm the boundary from the outset? I will spend the next year forging a stronger relationship with her, we do get on well with them, particularly well with her husband. We will start a dialogue of our intentions and hopefully she won't have an issue. Thank you.

Thank you - great advice and what a position for you to be in! Congratulations. I understand what you mean about the mini project. I am not sure "Mrs. Bouquet" next door would approve of a caravan, but I will definitely look into this and it would be great if we can. Hoardings would be up anyway. It would be great if we can avoid paying rent.

Thank you

The cabin doesn't exist yet. if we could go down that road I wonder if we could remove the bathroom and bedroom and convert it back to a standard storage cabin when we are done or even pull down the whole thing as it will still be substantially cheaper than local rents ? Wow, in a caravan I bet that was fun (and intense). How long were you in there for? How were your neighbours about it / weren't you affected if you are you rural? I will check our land registry document, I recall a mention of a caravan, I'm not sure in which context though.

Thank you SO much for being so generous and sharing this information. My husband has this idea of living in a purpose built cabin at the bottom of the garden after seeing one at his friend's house. An architect advised it would be possible with permitted development and to get the company to apply. This is another bit of homework for me to follow through. Did you live on site?

Thank you My checklist is growing fast. Good luck.

Thank you Temp. I'll embrace myself. I expect my neighbour to do that she seems to be that way inclined. Her objection reasons were dismissed by the council when we applied for planning permission. When it came to the appeal on receipt of the letter she went running round to wind up our other lovely neighbour (who actually recommended the planning consultant to fight our appeal ?) to write an objection too!

Thank you SeaSocks. Our poorly built 2 bed bungalow came with its problems accumulated over the years with poor extensions, narrow entrance via stairs, narrow doorways and corridors, split level flooring, damp, mould and flooding to name a few! We did a major renovation to make it habitable. A structural engineer's inspection and report confirmed that it is not feasible to extend upwards due to the poor foundations / construction. It made sense to start again. Plus we will benefit from VAT relief. Everything went really well throughout the pre-application meetings and feedback was positive from the PO and the team which advised to change the materials etc throughout each stage of design. Unfortunately the PO left just before he was due to make a recommendation for approval - the new officer recommended refusal on the basis of loss of bungalow and street scene. I am convinced that he didn't visit the site and see that every single house is set back and different in terms of style and materials and that our property is dwarfed by two large houses either side. In fact this is the only single storey bungalow left on this street amongst large 2-2.5 storey houses. Interestingly, the council acknowledge that the design is of high quality in terms of design and materials and that the street is full of large houses. We have no TPOs and not in a protected area, so hopefully the rest will be straight forward. We got there in the end! Good luck with everything.

Thank you. Joe90 We won our appeal last week...so hopefully no more fighting for us - although my friend tells me that the planners will watch our project like hawks now! ?

Thank you so much Conor & Bozza That is really helpful information and has saved us. I have a call lined up with our building society tomorrow morning and will make sure that we don't commit to a 5 year offset mortgage product transfer (with high early repayment charges) which I was told about last week! We got full planning permission (won our appeal!) a couple of weeks ago, and are now just looking at making slight amendments to the approved design and discharging conditions, the standard contamination of soil, drainage (been advised by architect to do after stage 4) and landscape (advised to do after design has been finalised), party wall agreements etc. (Does it ever end?) I will give Ecology a call tomorrow, they sound very professional and like they could be the most suitable option for us and I guess that it wouldn't do us any harm to add a contingent buffer on top of the mortgage amount based on the mechanics of the self-build loan and how we don't have to draw down. This actually feels a lot better, especially if we can qualify for interest only. Is / was it easy to switch back to a standard residential repayment mortgage after your build is / was complete? When estate agents valued our property last year they all told me that it literally was for the site because nobody would buy this for this bungalow to live in as it stands (ouch - but I knew that!) and that it would always be to rebuild (even though we did a major refurbishment just to make it habitable until we reached this stage). So hopefully we will have the same valuation situation as you Conor. Currently our LTV is around 30% with a large mortgage. I'll also have a chat with our financial advisor this week and see if he can come up with any solutions. I'll provide an update as to how I get on after I have exhausted all the above. Thanks again. Brilliant.

Hi. We are planning to demolish our residential home and replace with a new dwelling in a couple of years time. We currently have a residential mortgage with a building society and hope to fund our project purely with savings. Our mortgage will be due for review soon. I don't want to commit to a fixed term residential if early repayment charges will be incurred. Will our residential mortgage have to be converted to a self-build for the duration of the build? I have read some online articles where some suggest that building societies allow customers to retain while others raise alarm bells. Please does anyone have experience of or know the answer to my question? I could only find a post relating to funding self-builds whilst living in existing residential homes with sufficient equity. Thank you.