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Hi my neighbours builder has knocked down one wall of their brick and concrete slab outhouse and retired for the weekend. This can't be safe can it?

Back story: I have made a planning application for a replacement dwelling. I am anticipating a result by March 2023, though the planners have said the results will be in by end of January. In my head, I've allowed them until June, so I don't get too stressed by delays. The plan is to demolish a 1950's suburban style chalet bungalow in the countryside and replace with a sustainable timber frame barn-esque in-keeping, absolutely inoffensive beauty - existing house shunts out 8.2 tonnes of carbon [apparently], future house will be zero carbon emissions or less [hopefully]. It's going to pass muster, right?! Question: Assuming the planning application is successful, can anyone advise on exactly how long after the permission I can demolish [or arrange to have demolished] the old chalet bungalow, please?

I know everyone is interested in planning refusals and tough rulings. I hadn't seen this before so is probably new news. Highlands house with no planning permission has to be removed. I have cut and pasted this from the Mail website so you don't have to go in there and turn off all the ads. An American businesswoman who built a £200,000 eco-home in the Scottish Highlands has been ordered to tear it down after breaching strict planning controls. Developer Eve Wilder, from Oregon, had the wooden property constructed on the banks of Loch Migdale in Sutherland before putting it up for sale on the property market. Described as the 'ideal' Highland getaway, the one-bedroom eco-home was built to the 'highest standard' and every material used was 'non-toxic', according to a sales brochure for the property. However Highland Council has now ordered Ms Wilder to have the building demolished within four months after the 'unauthorised development was carried out without the knowledge or permission of the local planning authority'. The eco-home was put up for sale by the developer before being removed from the property market when the demolition row emerged. +5 The £200,000 eco-home (exterior pictured) was constructed on the banks of Loch Migdale in Sutherland, Scotland +5 The property's owner Eve Wilder, from Oregon, has now been ordered to demolish the site within four months. Pictured: The interior of the property The council have also said the development affects the natural scenic beauty of the Dornoch Firth. A council spokesperson said: 'This unauthorised development was carried out without the knowledge or permission of the local planning authority. 'The planning authority believe that the unauthorised development was completed whilst the appellant was residing in the United States of America, therefore it can be reasonably expected that the development be removed as there are no guarantees that the appellant will return to the UK and therefore the unauthorised development would remain in situ for an unknown period. 'That being said, the planning authority are keen to have this matter resolved and would be open to the appellant providing a detailed plan of the timescale and works to be completed for the removal of the development as required by the enforcement notice.' Ms Wilder was initially told she would need to take down the one-bedroomed property within three months but after appealing the council timeframe she has now been granted four months. +5 The eco-home is described as the 'ideal' Highland getaway and every material used is 'non-toxic', according to a sales brochure for the property +5 The council said the development affects the natural scenic beauty of the Dornoch Firth and construction was 'carried out without the knowledge or permission of the local planning authority' +5 The one-bedroomed property in the Scottish Highlands will now need to be take down within four months She also claimed the issue could be resolved by altering plans and seeking retrospective permission for the house. An appeal letter on her behalf read: 'It is considered that the requirements of the notice exceed what is necessary to remedy any breach of planning control or indeed any injury to both immediate and wider surrounding amenity caused by that breach. 'In this regard, the site property could be physically amended in design terms to meet the policy design requirements of the planning authority and, as a consequence, such matters could potentially be resolved through a retrospective planning application as opposed to serving a notice requiring total demolition. 'Given the appellant's residence, it is considered that it is unreasonable to expect the appellant to comply with the terms of the notice within a three month period and falls short of what should reasonably be allowed. 'The appellant would suggest that a six month period would be more appropriate given the logistics of instructing and managing such an operation at distance.' Government reporter Steve Field said: 'I uphold the enforcement notice but allow the appeal to the extent that I vary the terms of the notice by changing the time period for compliance to four months. 'I have considered all the other matters raised but there are none which would lead me to alter my conclusions.' Unfortunately it is necessary to do into the daily mail website and turn off all their avertising but her it is: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10328871/American-businesswoman-built-200-000-eco-home-Highlands-ordered-tear-down.html

I am posting this in case it is helpful to anyone on this site now or in the future. We have just had the last bit of asbestos removed from our 1960s bungalow and demolition is now able to commence. If you have asbestos it needs to be removed and disposed of appropriately. Some asbestos is not as bad (chrysotile for example) and can be dampened, double bagged in heavy duty polythene and taken to a tip that accepts asbestos (many don't). But if you have the bad stuff (we had amosite) it has to be put in sealed containers and shipped out properly and the work has to be done by licenced contractors. The Health & Safety Executive needs to be informed 14 days prior to work commencing. Our contractors did that for us. We suspected asbestos so got a couple of samples tested a year ago. One was chrysotile, the other was amosite (asbestos insulating board used on our soffits). At that point our demolition costs went up by a factor of 6 ? You need an asbestos survey before demolition. These are invasive and leave your house with holes everywhere (ceilings / walls). They can repair the damage and allow you back in once it is done but most surveyors we spoke to didn't recommend it. We moved out permanently before getting our survey. Sadly our survey showed up even more asbestos than we knew about. We knew about the soffit boards and the roof edging strips and the artex ceilings. We didn't know that every vertical wall strut in the outer walls of our timber frame 1960s "flat pack from the NEC" would be lined with a strip of asbestos. Our asbestos contractors have been in for a week in April and then again for most of May (had to give an additional 14 days notice to HSE for the newly found asbestos). First a protective plastic "bubble" was fitted around the house, encasing the soffits. Extract fans were placed to filter the air before extracting it to the outside world. An airlock of plastic encased boxes was built to the front of the house. A shower unit was permanently on site for the guys when they de-suited each day. The soffits were removed, then the house was sealed from the inside so the internal asbestos could be removed. At all times, all the guys working wore masks and full protective suits. After all was removed, an asbestos analyst attended to ensure that the air was clean and the asbestos was removed and all areas appropriately cleaned. A certificate of reoccupation was then issued to officially allow people to go back into the house without all the suits and masks. A contractor has done all this for us and we are glad that we haven't attempted any of this ourselves. They finished yesterday (though the chrysotile roof edging is still in place and will be taken off with the tiles). Some photos attached. Hope this is helpful to someone else.

Week one of this build, and the demolition guys are already driving me insane! ? The brick-debate ensues... and now broken slabs of concrete are in the mix (quite literally). Whilst they removed the metal (to weigh in), the windows and most of the timber of our former bungalow, we're left with landfill sized mounds of a broken up concrete slab (which we've lifted in order to lay another concrete slab ?) and the demo guys have said they never priced to remove this from site. They priced to demolish, level and site scrape. But not to remove the mountain of bricks and concrete which may or may not have all sorts of old brass chandeliers glinting in the sunlight. What is typical lovely self-builders? Should the demo price include removing the building rubble from site?

We've demolished our bungalow in order to build a new house. As the garden is large and slopes off away from the house, we want to use the broken bricks and smashed concrete to fill it in. As part of this, we want a totally flat area for our kids to play football on. Our demolition contractor says we don't need to crush the bricks before putting them in the garden. Will this work? Or is he just trying to save labour here and fob us off?

I have my bat licence! Woohoo! Albeit that ours was a pretty simple case (summer roost only, no breeding evidence, unoccupied building and no big trees in close proximity), I'm chuffed that we got our licence through quite speedily. I nagged our architect yesterday about the lack of progress with discharging the planning conditions and this has rather caught him out now, as that's the only thing standing between me and having the property demolished, so time to get on with things. As soon as the roof is off, I will contact the VOA and have the property de-listed to save on council tax - because the property had been vacant for so long, I didn't get any reduction for it being unoccupied, so I'm keen to get this done. I've got my site insurance quotes yesterday and my groundworker is on notice, so we're under starters orders.

Can you hear that? It's the sound of my fingers tapping as I find myself waiting for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn. This time, it's the turn of Natural England and their (hopeful) approval of our bat mitigation strategy and licence to remove the roof from the old bungalow. It takes around 6 weeks for them to decide on a licence application but they are behind by a week or two right now, so that means it could be anything up to 2 months. 2 months! Unbelievable! I've come to the conclusion that this part of self building is like being stuck in the mother of all traffic jams, one that lasts for months and years on end. Still, all I can do is sit and wait and hope to hell that the licence is granted before the bats decide to move back in for the summer, some time in early May, possibly. I've planned to within an inch of my life for stuff to do with the house and I don't think that there's much more I can do at this stage that will be of practical use or run into the danger of overthinking things. My boredom was slightly relieved last week by having the asbestos survey done prior to demolition - nothing nasty, all standard - and getting all the hedges in close proximity to the bungalow taken out by my trusty groundworker. Actually, I do need to have a look into site facilities for once demolition is done as I can't go for a discrete pee behind the hedges now that they are down. Things could get tricky if I start mooning the neighbours. The asbestos survey chap was a pleasant fellow. I rang around for quotes and they seem to all come in at a similar price, in the region of £350 + VAT. I used Mark Harverson of Four Paddock Ltd. He is in Lymington but is happy to travel and was nice to deal with. So, I'm waiting for the soil survey report, the asbestos report and the bat licence, for the architect and MBC to finalise drawings for the building regulations submission. If things get really desperate, I won't be able to ignore work and housework for much longer. Tap, tap, tap...... Edit: A small addition about the asbestos survey. In theory, unless the householder suspects that there is asbestos present, there is no legal obligation to have an asbestos survey carried out prior to demolition. In practice, however, no groundworker will demolish without knowing that you've had one done and what the results were, so best to get it done and out of the way in good time before knocking things down.

A bit of advice needed here please. We are completely new to self build and progress has been slower than we hoped. Planning permission for "demolition of existing house and garage and building of new house and garage" has just been granted. We are just considering what to do first. We are thinking about knocking down just the garage to start with. This should allow us to dig to locate our utilities (still haven't found them so resorting to a digger), and then put our static caravan in without covering over said utilities (only one potential site for the caravan). Then we can move onto demolishing the house afterwards. If we do this, we assume our build will "start" as the demolition is noted on our permission. Is this correct? We plan to sort out the CIL with the LA before we "start". But do we need to have a building control inspector involved? Do we need any building regs stuff done before demolition? Site insurance? Or is all that just for the building phase? Anything else to consider at this stage? Thanks everyone.

Our planning application is in for our new extension and new garage, I know I don't need planning for my existing garage demolition but do I need a building warrant. My thinking is no. Thoughts? Thanks.

I came across some useful information today that doesn't exactly fall into the categories of the title of this section, but I think this is the closest one. The plot that we have bought has an old bungalow on it that we plan to demolish. Because the property has been vacant for some time, North Dorset Council have re-imposed council tax on the property and no discounts are available. Lack of occupancy and change of ownership make no difference. I advised the council of the change of ownership and just received a council tax bill for the remainder of the council's financial year, to 31/3/17. I rang the council as I wanted to be clear on a couple of minor points, in particular since demolition may take a period of time and when council tax would cease, and they put me in touch with the Valuation Office Agency. In short, the VOA advised that as soon as the property becomes 'unbanded', council tax can no longer be levied. The property becomes unbanded as soon as either the windows or roof are removed and so it is uninhabitable. Whether or not it has utilities connected is irrelevant and it isn't necessary to wait for demolition to apply for it to be unbanded. The windows part of this is very helpful for us as our property may have bats in the roof space, so demolition could take some time. However, once we've had the electricity supply to the bungalow cut off, we can go ahead and remove the windows and escape a £1600 pa council tax charge.

While I am sure prices vary enormously, is anyone able to give a rought idea how much to allocate to knock down a property? Its a 1950's house with a horrible extension on the back. Some of the parts may be able to be sold to reclamation but assuming not, what sort of price would i be looking at? £20k or £50k?? More??

So I have planning approval for the replacement of our existing dilapidated wooden dormer bungalow and following an enforced lull in my self build programme, due to the stop, start, stop, start sale of our existing house, fingers crossed it actually completes next month!, I'm now trying to get back on track. So can I simply dismantle the existing bungalow to allow the construct of the new house, or is there any hoops I need to jump through first before removing it?