Where to start...?

[Lets]

Hi! I’m Lets, Ive got a plot of land which has potential. I have no planning yet but not expecting that to be an issue should I chose to go ahead,  but there are some people with access rights through the land, so these are issues that will have to be sorted. It might be a long process! However, I need to get researching. I literally have no idea where to start and I need to get some ideas of an order, pricing etc.

any suggestions and guidance for good starting points for planning this and working out how viable it will be, would be great!

thanks in advance...

[Thedreamer]

Hi @Lets welcome to the forum.

 

I found this book to be useful Housebuilder's Bible it gave me a good overview of self building. 

 

I would also recommend having a good dig through the blogs section of the forum.

Edited March 23, 2019 by Thedreamer

[ProDave]

Are these individual rights? or a public right of way?  VERY different things to deal with. A public ROW is almost impossible to extinguish and very hard even to move.

[Roundtuit]

Hi, and welcome aboard.  It's great that you don't expect any issues with planning permission; on balance I'd suggest that's probably the minority experience!  There's a wealth of experience here, but a lot more detail is required to give you any meaningful advice.  Are you able to tell us more please?

[ToughButterCup]

Where to start?

Easy. Somewhere - doesn't matter where. Then think about it's dependencies. That always - without fail - leads to the fundamentals. The things you cannot avoid.

 

Then, head-down-arse-up-go.

[Lets]

Thanks for the comments. The plot of land is set back from a residential road and surrounded by gardens. It currently has 3 large garages on it. One individual house that backs onto the plot has access rights to their garden and one next to the (private) path into the plot has a garage (tiny section of plot) they own but no access rights. These are things that need to be negotiated, but having spoken to the guys with no access rights I think we’ll be able to agree something. The other guy is going to be difficult, but as long as access is provided (it specifies it doesn’t have to be car sized, although I can easily make it so a car car drive through for a garage) it can work. Really, he can make things take time (likely to be a year of negotiations take a long time), but not stop anything (having spoken to a solicitor to check). I’m ok with that - I’m living with my parents and not in a rush, this will be a slow project!

I have informally spoken to the local town council and they have said, provisionally, a residential house on the plot should be fine. Whilst I am sure there will be some issues (nothing is ever as smooth as you might hope!!) I think I will get things moving.

im thinking the best for the plot (although yet to chat to an architect!) would be a horseshoe shaped single story house. Potential for a basement but would depend on soil and costs. I’m definitely going for cheap and cheerful rather than dream home project. But obviously, a home is a home.

ive a friend who is an electrician and a family friend who is a builder, they’ve both offered to help around ‘real’ jobs, but clearly this is occasional and guidance rather than ‘whole project’.

so.... I am a total beginner. I’ve never done anything to a house. I’ve done some reading about self builds to gain some idea, I’ve researched potential costs, I’ve chatted to a couple of people who have built their own. I’ve researched some different methods and gained some idea of the (scary!) pitfalls. But really this is all limited info at the mo.

im fundamentally doing this because I can’t seem to buy what I want (a 3 bed with a granny annex and small garden) where I want to live.

i am very aware that if I do not want costs to spiral, I need to have very detailed planning... and since I’m at the very start of my journey, I wondered if anyone had any ‘must dos’ for the start I guess.

will check out that book, thanks!

[ProDave]

One thing I would consider is a house design that is cheap to build as a small house but designed so it is easy to enlarge as funds allow.  e.g one thing that is common here is build a bungalow, but make the roof using attic trusses already specified as a structural element to take a floor loading.  then it is very much easier and cheaper later on to add the upper floor.