Search the Community

Hi All. I know this forum is for selfbuild house but I need some advice from you experienced people in terms of if the planning design is most appropriate most value for money option. The property is detached house with c 0.25 acre of plot and was previously used as a care home but it is currently used as 7bed HMO and has Sui Generis planning permission and HMO licence. Current value is based on income multiple based on the number of rooms so theoretically number of rooms go up, the value also go up. Hence in that basis I am planning to increase the rooms from 7 to 11 or 12 (if possible). One option was to rebuild one bed flats units but I was not sure numbers of flats I would have achieved in there and the cost of entire rebuild meant that I went with additional rooms. I did some alterations/remodelling/refurbishment in 2019 and ended up spending c125k including finance costs. It included new plumbing/electrics small utility extension, hence I did not want do radical changes in remodelling option but I think if I can recoup that via further increase in the value from rebuild of flats I might treat that 125k as sunk cost with a heavy heart but that would mo doubt hurt. I attach the exisiting and proposed plan for remodel/extension option and would appreciate your feedback on it or if you think rebuild would be more suitable as flats then happy to consider that as well. Thanks.

Hi guys, This is my first post and would appreciate some advice if anyone can help. My parents own an office building which they have been trying to sell but I have always had other plans for it and suggested making it in to flats as its such a large space. They had a buyer which has recently fell through and now they are finally considering converting it into flats. The positive from the situation is that the person who tried to buy the property had gained prior approval for Class O Permitted Development however, the plans he had were not what I had in mind and he wanted to make a HMO. So now we need to put another prior approval request in with new plans that match what we want. I have tried contacting the planning office numerous times but no response, i'm assuming due to Covid. I wanted to get a bit more info about what we can have under the Class O PD but don't want to pay for pre-planning advice if can be avoided due to cost and the time the council will take to reply. I have also looked at the legislation which is very vague and can't find anything on the internet. My question is, with Class O PD, can you keep part of the building as an office space and convert the rest in to flats without getting full planning permission? I have attached an original plan of the building and drawn on the other to show the flats and the office as I would like them. I believe you can have as many self contained flats as you want at any size under this PD but i'm just not sure about keeping part of the building as the same use class as the original. I hope someone has had some experience with this and can please help! Thanks Sam Office Original Plan.pdf Office Original Plan 2.pdf

hi I am sue. My sister and I are planning to convert her large house into 3 flats so as to sell two, pay off her mortgage and for her to live in the third. She has claimed and received a self build exemption for one flat but my research suggests she will not be able to supply any of the 3 forms of evidence required at the end of the self build ( vat letter, self build warranty or self build mortgage) as none of those seem to be available for conversion of a house into 3 flats... has anyone had any experience with this? The Cil is about £20,000 and is making us think twice about whether the project is viable.... love to hear from anyone as this self build exemption looks like a nightmare. thanks sue