Just finishing a family build

[PWS]

Hi everyone. I am a retired brickie, although I haven't been "on the tools" for many years. My wife and I built our own house in 1980 when we were just 20 and 21. It was part of a self build scheme of about 10 houses in Wiltshire and we queued on the Council steps all one snowy weekend to secure our plot. With the enthusiasm of youth and only just out of my apprenticeship, we approached the bank manager for a mortgage along with the equity from the first house we'd bought 3 years before and with lots of advice from my developer employer it all paid off and we ended up in a 4 bed house which set us up for life. Seven years and two children later we decided to return to the south coast where we were from and bought a 30s bungalow with a huge garden which we extended. Over the 30 years we were there we occasionally had developers enquiring about our garden but nothing ever came of it and eventually we were landlocked anyway. 

 

In 2014, retirement was looming and we had many discussions about downsizing but we loved the area and nothing seemed right so we decided to make some enquiries about whether we could  get planning in the back garden with access down our drive. Our initial thoughts were that we would sell the house with PP if we were able to. Anyway to cut a long story short, after a year of discussions with developers who gradually squeezed the numbers too much, we decided to go for the PP ourselves to build 2 properties, one for us and our son decided to let his Dad build his first home on the other plot. The cost of obtaining the PP was huge without any guarantees and loads of stress,  CIL on the horizon and slow slow planners. Eventually we were very lucky to get the permission.

 

Next came the mortgage issue. Approaching our sixties, lenders were unwilling to let us have a conventional mortgage on our existing house ( our preferred option) and the terms were too short so we went for a more expensive self build mortgage which would be repaid by the sale of our house at the end of the project. I was the project manager for both builds and my wife dealt with the finances. Our son got his own self build mortgage and we all put our stage payments into a central building account which we used for the build.  I used local trades and I mucked in wherever I could to help. Being able to remain living in our existing house on site made the build really easy to organise and monitor.

 

For costings we used various methods including estimators online and with some tight budgeting we have come in exactly or just under budget for 2 four bedroom, 2 en suite properties traditionally brick built. 

 

I have dipped into this forum occasionally but in particular for information on the VAT reclaim. We took our sons VAT on board and only charged him net costs to help with his budget so we had a lot riding on the claim.  The forum has been so helpful in this respect and I will post my experience with the claim in the relevant section.

[joe90]

Hi and welcome, nice to hear your story, yes sooo much info on this forum and the VAT issue fir me was scary but advice here had it dealt with very easily.

[Ferdinand]

Welcome.

[Mr Punter]

Hi and welcome

 

Retiring at 60 is rare nowadays.  Will you do any sort of work?  Now you have project management and organisational skills in addition to your construction industry experience I would have thought you would be pretty useful.

[PWS]

Mr Punter I'm pretty shattered after 2 builds so quite looking forward to a rest! For a bit anyway. Plus the old joints are creaking and I still have the drive to do and some landscaping. Not quite like the last time in 1980 when I did a day's bricklaying at work and then our own build in the evening.

[Gone West]

2 hours ago, PWS said:

Mr Punter I'm pretty shattered after 2 builds so quite looking forward to a rest! For a bit anyway. Plus the old joints are creaking and I still have the drive to do and some landscaping. Not quite like the last time in 1980 when I did a day's bricklaying at work and then our own build in the evening.

Know how you feel. I retired when I was 55 and spent most of my 60s self building our house, and that was only one house. I'm knackered and my working days are getting shorter and shorter. Edit, welcome to the forum by the way.

Edited October 30, 2019 by PeterStarck

[Oldsteel]

At 64 I am semi-retired and heading into my last self-build, did one 10 years ago in Ireland but its long enough to forget some of the grief! I started out thinking I would go the PM route and do some of the PMing myself but now leaning towards main contractor and doing bits and pieces myself, as I am happy with electrics (but not certified) and some plumbing work. Like installing a kitchen ,decorating, fitting lighting, home automation etc. What I have learned from my last build is that you can't do enough planning and estimating before you start any work, and you cant research everything to the degree where you have all the answers, so employing professionals you can trust and get along with is critical. Although my last build was largely successful, my target is to make fewer mistakes this time around.  @PWS welcome to the forum!

[joe90]

Snap, I am also 64 and retired and just finished our build (well nearly only an acre of ground to landscape ?), like @PeterStarck I am knackered and my working day gets shorter. On my build I was PM , labourer, chippy etc etc. I had a main contractor fir founds, brickwork, concreting plastering etc but did nearly all the chippying, plumbing kitchen fitting etc. Although I could do more I decided to stick at what I enjoyed and able to do well and pay others to do the “hard” work other wise it would not be enjoyable and take a lot longer. I was lucky tho, had a brilliant builder who has turned into a good friend.

[Ferdinand]

3 hours ago, joe90 said:

I am also 64

 

Trust she still loves you ... ?

 

(sorry)

 

 

Edited October 30, 2019 by Ferdinand