New to this

[BuildInspire]

Hi everyone, just introducing myself. 40 year old. We've been looking at getting a mortgage not seen anything suitable. We have now decided, building is someewe should really look into. So our journey starts here. Wish me luck. 

[jack]

48 minutes ago, BuildInspire said:

So our journey starts here. Wish me luck. 

 

Good luck!

[Thorfun]

good luck. have fun down the rabbit hole. ?

 

[nod]

Good luck 

Great time to start looking for a plot 

Whilst plots are selling quicker 

Prices arnt rising as quick as house prices 

[BuildInspire]

Thanks guys. We've literally just put our name on the council's register and just saving up. We are just getting all the necessary information we need as this is all very new to us but exciting project. I am just wondering, when you we start looking for a mortgage, do we have to have a plot in mind first? 

[Thorfun]

11 minutes ago, BuildInspire said:

put our name on the council's register

I wonder if the whole self-build register is just a box ticking exercise and most councils have no intention of doing anything about it. has anyone ever actually got a plot from the scheme?

 

personally, I'd be looking at other options rather than waiting on the council to find you a plot.

 

please note: I am a cynical b*****d so maybe don't pay attention to me. ? 

[Bramco]

17 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

I wonder if the whole self-build register is just a box ticking exercise and most councils have no intention of doing anything about it. has anyone ever actually got a plot from the scheme?

 

The registers are simply a way of assessing demand for plots - no LPA is going to allocate a plot afaik.   What they do with the info is to run it into their 5 yearly planning policy exercises where they create or revise their Local Plans - Local Plans should have enough land allocated to meet projected demand. LPAs don't put land forward, land owners do and it's registered in the SHLAA strategic land availability something or other. When it comes to the Local Plan 5 yearly revisions, LPAs should use this as the source of land for allocation but of course it's a free for all when the Local Plan is being updated...   He who shouts loudest, has friends in the right places etc.

 

So if you are holding your breath waiting for a plot allocation from the LPA stop now!

 

You could look at your Local Plan and see if there are any land allocations for self build and then you'd have to approach the land owner/agent but in all likelihood all of the plots will have gone almost as soon as the plan is adopted or even before.

 

A more productive way maybe of finding a plot in the local area is to drive round areas you like looking for badly maintained bungalows (the owners may be on their last legs) and keep an eye out for them coming on the market. It would likely be a (nearly) demolish and build of course.   It's also worth putting a nicely worded letter through these doors to say you are a couple looking for a new home in the area and see the property has lots of potential etc. etc.

 

And keep doing the lottery - one line a week - you never know!!

 

And GOOD LUCK!!

 

Simon

Edited June 25, 2021 by Bramco

[BuildInspire]

11 minutes ago, Bramco said:

 

The registers are simply a way of assessing demand for plots - no LPA is going to allocate a plot afaik.   What they do with the info is to run it into their 5 yearly planning policy exercises where they create or revise their Local Plans - Local Plans should have enough land allocated to meet projected demand. LPAs don't put land forward, land owners do and it's registered in the SHLAA strategic land availability something or other. When it comes to the Local Plan 5 yearly revisions, LPAs should use this as the source of land for allocation but of course it's a free for all when the Local Plan is being updated...   He who shouts loudest, has friends in the right places etc.

 

So if you are holding your breath waiting for a plot allocation from the LPA stop now!

 

You could look at your Local Plan and see if there are any land allocations for self build and then you'd have to approach the land owner/agent but in all likelihood all of the plots will have gone almost as soon as the plan is adopted or even before.

 

A more productive way maybe of finding a plot in the local area is to drive round areas you like looking for badly maintained bungalows (the owners may be on their last legs) and keep an eye out for them coming on the market. It would likely be a (nearly) demolish and build of course.   It's also worth putting a nicely worded letter through these doors to say you are a couple looking for a new home in the area and see the property has lots of potential etc. etc.

 

And keep doing the lottery - one line a week - you never know!!

 

And GOOD LUCK!!

 

Simon

Wow! Thanks so much for taking the time to explain all this. Thank you! 

[Thorfun]

46 minutes ago, Bramco said:

looking for badly maintained bungalows

that's exactly what we found ?

 

 

 

[Lorenz]

Would it help if a group of people from the same village got onto their Parish Council to allow an area for self build. Next to the village I live in, they are building a new estate, but no one in the village wants that type of housing, preferring houses with more space inside and larger gardens, as many have businesses at home, so these small executive homes at double the price of similar sized houses in the village are only going to attract commuters from somewhere else. Add to this the Parish Council objected to them, but were overridden. Surely there is a case for allowing local people to put forward for allowing the kinds of properties families need in the real world?

[BuildInspire]

Thanks very much guys, now we know. We're just putting things together and getting as much info as possible about this venture. Keeping our credit history clean, which we've been doing for the past two years. I might also be going self employed soon so I need to know how this will affect us too.Thanks again guys.

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, Lorenz said:

Add to this the Parish Council objected to them, but were overridden.

I think this answers your question. local parish councils don't have any real powers when it comes to planning as far as I know. they can 'make suggestions' to the planning department on applications but don't have much more of a say.

 

our local parish council said that 'flat roofs were against the parish council policy', the council planning department still approved our application that has 2 x flat roofs!

[SteamyTea]

Welcome.

 

Buying a home is a strange thing, most people seem to buy where they already live and work.  This may seems sensible, but can limit your choices somewhat.

My first home was close to family and work, cost quite a bit and was totally unsuitable.  Then the second one was 20 miles from work and family, was better, then third was 150 miles away from both, was even better still.  I just got a new job locally.  Finally I moved 300 miles from friends and family, but close to a beach that is good for surfing, not that I do that these days, but it is nice to sit on.

So my advice is to widen the area you are considering, avoid property 'hot spots', avoid 'schemes', reconsider work option, and save, save, save, cash is king.

Self build is expensive, more expensive than renovation, you can easily spend £50k before you have bought the first cubic metre of concrete.

[Thorfun]

8 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

you can easily spend £50k before you have bought the first cubic metre of concrete

This is what surprised me the most. The amount of money we’d spent before we’d even broken ground was hard to fathom.  

[BuildInspire]

11 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Welcome.

 

Buying a home is a strange thing, most people seem to buy where they already live and work.  This may seems sensible, but can limit your choices somewhat.

My first home was close to family and work, cost quite a bit and was totally unsuitable.  Then the second one was 20 miles from work and family, was better, then third was 150 miles away from both, was even better still.  I just got a new job locally.  Finally I moved 300 miles from friends and family, but close to a beach that is good for surfing, not that I do that these days, but it is nice to sit on.

So my advice is to widen the area you are considering, avoid property 'hot spots', avoid 'schemes', reconsider work option, and save, save, save, cash is king.

Self build is expensive, more expensive than renovation, you can easily spend £50k before you have bought the first cubic metre of concrete.

Thank you! 

[SteamyTea]

15 minutes ago, Thorfun said:

The amount of money we’d spent before we’d even broken ground was hard to fathom.  

We should start a new topic on this, I often wonder how much money is spent on a plot when you consider that there may be several people interested in buying it.

When I was selling a place I had a vendor that went quiet for several weeks, so decided to sell privately (sacked estate agent).  The new vendor quickly arranged for the survey to be done.  The surveyor said "I have this places booked in for a fortnights time as well".  So that would have been an extra £500 or so, for the same report.

So my estate agent never told the original vendor that the place was off the market, wonder if he charged the guy a fee. 

Edited June 26, 2021 by SteamyTea

[Thorfun]

I can list ours out as I have a spreadsheet. at the time you're like "it's only £1k let's just pay it". but £1k here and another £1k there etc and it soon adds up!

 

we had planning fees, architects fees, ecologist fees, utilities, warranty, insurance, structural engineers, civil engineers, mortgage survey and fees, timber frame deposit, M&E deposits, building control fees, windows and doors deposit, surveyors and plant that I bought (to save money!).

 

that all made a massive dent in our budget and we hadn't even broken ground so you start thinking I've spent a huge amount of money and have absolutely nothing to show for it apart from a few drawings! obviously, that's not entirely true as everything was then in place to get started but it's a psychological hurdle to overcome. At least now we have our basement almost finished so we have something to show for the money we've spent.

[Bramco]

21 hours ago, Lorenz said:

Would it help if a group of people from the same village got onto their Parish Council to allow an area for self build.

 

Might take a while as you'd have to have enough like minded people to stand for election and elections are every few years.  Sadly most PCs are inhabited by exactly the kind of people on that Zoom call that went viral - that's the norm, not anything reasonable

 

But back to planning, the current legislation allows for Neighbourhood Plans - basically a refinement of the LPA Local Plan at Parish level (or areas bigger than that).  There's a chance of course that these will disappear when the current mob drive through their planning changes but at the moment a Parish can have a Neighbourhood Plan and when an application is being dealt with, the LPA has to take into account what is written in the Parish NP.  So if flat roofs were not liked by the PC and it was in their NP, then the LPA shouldn't really give permission.

 

NPs are not easy to write - it took us nearly 3 years to get ours adopted.  Ours was done in parallel to the LPA Local Plan and should have fed into that in terms of preference for allocation of development sites - of course the LPA went their own way and allocated a large site which we wanted designated as local green space (effectively Green Belt in planning terms).  We're now going to be saddled with one of those executive ghettos with expensive tiny twee houses instead of the gradual building on a series of smaller infill plots.  Self build was one of the concepts built into the plan - although it's almost impossible to get it dealt with properly.

 

However we built into the plan that for every site to be developed the PC should create a design brief - this allowed us to challenge the developer of the big site to change a number of things, including having more 1/2/3 bungalows and more affordable housing (although affordability is a joke).  The design brief concept could have allowed us to create a design brief for a plot that had a certain %age of self build.  I'm not on the PC and couldn't get them to demand this of the large developer though.

 

A lot of land around the village is owned by the church - much like a lot of villages I guess.  We managed to build into the plan a Rural Exception Scheme - these are great for affordable housing as they are developed by housing associations, the LPA has to keep a register of local people interested in a house on the scheme and there are various options for renting and part purchasing - and the housing remains in perpetuity for local people.

 

You need to have a lot of time on your hands to get involved in this though, so I'd still advise looking for housing that will in all likelihood be coming on the market in the next few years and making sure you are ready if and when one comes up.

 

Simon

Edited June 26, 2021 by Bramco