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Hi everyone, After years of hard slog (mainly by my much more capable other half!) and fours house flips later we have finally bought a house for 'us' rather than one to do up and sell on - exciting times! So the property has a large detached garage with a first floor on top. The first floor is accessed externally and currently has a store room and another larger room which was used by the old owners as an office (so already has power). With the amount of space up there we'd love to convert it into an annex for family to stay, with the possibility of air bnb'ing it later down the line. We're doing our best to get our heads round permissions but getting a bit stuck! Having spoken to our local council we can have a 'pre-application advice' meeting for £80 to discuss changing it to an annex for personal use or £260 to discuss changing it into a 'holiday let'. Before committing to either of these (to potentially be told no - previous owner applied for planning twice to build another house on the land and main reason for denial was increased traffic in the rural area), I was wondering whether anyone could help me understand our chances of getting planning for either of the above.... or even whether converting it to an annex for personal use would fall into the permitted developments category. I'm completely new to all this and the information online is going straight over my head so any help in an easy to understand format would be very much appreciated!! Thanks so much.

Hello, SoI’ve been dreaming up a small home on a small plot. Sadly the neighbour has encroached to prevent (its a complicated story) but they have essentially pinned my little garage in and taken 2 feet of my land and is essentially attempting to force a sale. ...for now I need to repair the garage before everything in in is ruined. What can I do without planning permission for now until I have resolved the boundary situation? This is a case of someone with money taking of advantage of someone without....very frustrating! Please help. Thanks, Micc