Houses

[Trumpet]

Anyone familiar with planning permission? I’ve got a detached garage at the back of our garden gate which has a drive in front of it. It’s a double garage with a pitched roof, split between myself and our neighbours. The plan is to remove the garage door, brick it up and install a door and window on the front, along with two velux windows on each side of the roof.
 

I’ve contacted the council as I’m looking to convert it into office space and they’ve told me it will need planning permission as building regs have been removed, or something like that. The house and garage is about 15 years old.

 

I’ve registered to the planning portal, just unsure which kind of planning permission I need to apply for 

[Milo]

19 hours ago, Trumpet said:

Anyone familiar with planning permission? I’ve got a detached garage at the back of our garden gate which has a drive in front of it. It’s a double garage with a pitched roof, split between myself and our neighbours. The plan is to remove the garage door, brick it up and install a door and window on the front, along with two velux windows on each side of the roof.
 

I’ve contacted the council as I’m looking to convert it into office space and they’ve told me it will need planning permission as building regs have been removed, or something like that. The house and garage is about 15 years old.

 

I’ve registered to the planning portal, just unsure which kind of planning permission I need to apply for 

Probably permitted development rights have been removed, meaning you would need to apply for PP.  

 

And then keep everything crossed for the lottery that is local authority planning 😬

[Trumpet]

24 minutes ago, Milo said:

Probably permitted development rights have been removed, meaning you would need to apply for PP.  

 

And then keep everything crossed for the lottery that is local authority planning 😬

Ahh that’s the one! 
 

Really hope it’s accepted. I don’t want to lose a good chunk of the garden to one of those garden offices and the loft isn’t suitable for converting 

[Milo]

46 minutes ago, Trumpet said:

Ahh that’s the one! 
 

Really hope it’s accepted. I don’t want to lose a good chunk of the garden to one of those garden offices and the loft isn’t suitable for converting 

Do you use the garage for parking your car? They’re likely to ask that - so might be an idea to mention that you’ve lived there for x amount of years and have never used the garage for parking, and that the fact you are developing the garage will have no negative effect on the current parking situation, blah blah blah…! 

Another option may be to have the permitted development rights reinstated. You’ll have to find out why they were removed (look closely at the wording) and maybe go in aggressively to get them reinstated (?). Check they’ve removed them lawfully and with sufficient reason. 
Doubt this will be quicker or cheaper than applying for PP, but it might be a useful plan B if you run into difficulty. 
 

My experience of LA planning departments isn’t brilliant, tbh. They tend to give a dozen reasons why something can’t be done rather than any helpful advice as to what can be done. And revel in it. 
 

I’m sure some on here may have a more positive point of view! 

 

Good luck!

[Trumpet]

On 13/06/2021 at 09:45, Milo said:

Do you use the garage for parking your car? They’re likely to ask that - so might be an idea to mention that you’ve lived there for x amount of years and have never used the garage for parking, and that the fact you are developing the garage will have no negative effect on the current parking situation, blah blah blah…! 

Another option may be to have the permitted development rights reinstated. You’ll have to find out why they were removed (look closely at the wording) and maybe go in aggressively to get them reinstated (?). Check they’ve removed them lawfully and with sufficient reason. 
Doubt this will be quicker or cheaper than applying for PP, but it might be a useful plan B if you run into difficulty. 
 

My experience of LA planning departments isn’t brilliant, tbh. They tend to give a dozen reasons why something can’t be done rather than any helpful advice as to what can be done. And revel in it. 
 

I’m sure some on here may have a more positive point of view! 

 

Good luck!

Yeah we’ve been here for a couple of years and never parked a car in there. Like most garages it’s the holding point before the tip run that keeps getting put off 

 

Ive got a builder coming to provide a quote on Friday, so I may ask if he’s able to check over my application to make sure I’ve done it right. I’ve got plenty of time to get it right, seems every builders stacked out for most of the year!

[Wolfox]

7 hours ago, Trumpet said:

Yeah we’ve been here for a couple of years and never parked a car in there. Like most garages it’s the holding point before the tip run that keeps getting put off 

 

Ive got a builder coming to provide a quote on Friday, so I may ask if he’s able to check over my application to make sure I’ve done it right. I’ve got plenty of time to get it right, seems every builders stacked out for most of the year!

My build has just kicked off…. They’ve made nice progress so far

 

you’re into a whole new world of pain with regs…. Our planning officer is a nice bloke and works with us, but, the requirements are insane…. Because I’m having a loft conversion and don’t want to do major work to my 110 year old pine 4 panel doors I need a commercial analogue addressable fire alarm system installed with detectors in every room - that’s just mental!!!  But, I quickly worked out that this was a far better solution than a standard interlinked residential system…. And the additional work that goes with it…. 

 

1m x 600mm trench with 12m3 of concrete for a one story extension…. It’s overkill on a epic scale 

[Milo]

1 hour ago, Wolfox said:

My build has just kicked off…. They’ve made nice progress so far

 

you’re into a whole new world of pain with regs…. Our planning officer is a nice bloke and works with us, but, the requirements are insane…. Because I’m having a loft conversion and don’t want to do major work to my 110 year old pine 4 panel doors I need a commercial analogue addressable fire alarm system installed with detectors in every room - that’s just mental!!!  But, I quickly worked out that this was a far better solution than a standard interlinked residential system…. And the additional work that goes with it…. 

 

1m x 600mm trench with 12m3 of concrete for a one story extension…. It’s overkill on a epic scale 

Haha - bless them!

 

We're on solid chalk and the inspectors wanted something deeper for my neighbours extension. Builders wore out two buckets on their excavators before telling the building inspector to stick it! Was absolute madness.

The inspector never came back and the builders got a very belated (and totally pointless) apology from the council.

 

 

[Wolfox]

8 hours ago, Milo said:

Haha - bless them!

 

We're on solid chalk and the inspectors wanted something deeper for my neighbours extension. Builders wore out two buckets on their excavators before telling the building inspector to stick it! Was absolute madness.

The inspector never came back and the builders got a very belated (and totally pointless) apology from the council.

 

 

Oh my word….  They don’t do pragmatism do they?

 

Heavy clay soil here…. Like most of Leicester….  The rest of the house seems to be fine on a few pillared out engineering bricks!

[Big Dave]

On 12/06/2021 at 12:29, Trumpet said:

Anyone familiar with planning permission? I’ve got a detached garage at the back of our garden gate which has a drive in front of it. It’s a double garage with a pitched roof, split between myself and our neighbours. The plan is to remove the garage door, brick it up and install a door and window on the front, along with two velux windows on each side of the roof.
 

I’ve contacted the council as I’m looking to convert it into office space and they’ve told me it will need planning permission as building regs have been removed, or something like that. The house and garage is about 15 years old.

 

I’ve registered to the planning portal, just unsure which kind of planning permission I need to apply for 

I don’t know about planning for that, but we did a similar, but different thing.

Again, we had a double garage which we converted to a work room.  Our garage fronted onto a drive, and sided onto the garage. 
We kept the up-and-over doors in place, bricked it up on the inside, and opened up the side of the garage to dace onto the garden.  Anyone driving past the house wouldn’t know it has changed.

 

We did get some advice regarding planning and a concern that there would be a lack of parking spaces, but we would have been ok if we had sufficient off-road parking. 
This was 3-4 years ago so can’t quite remember what was said.

 

[FoyleFox]

Would anyone moving imminently like any packing boxes? I've 30 or 40 going spare, including hanging boxes.

 

Pickfords were supposed to be collecting, but now they're not, and I'll have to take to the tip instead. They are currently in the garden, so you might need to be quick before they're soggy!

[grth2004]

On 27/05/2021 at 22:57, Big Dave said:

True - I suppose it depends on your experience also. I’ve mortgaged and remortgaged countless times now on quite a few different properties, so it’s pretty much second nature to me.

 

Sounds like you have found someone good though - to turn it around that quickly at the moment is great.

Mortgage agreed today which is a massive weight off my mind with being self employed 

no chain above us as the couple split up so just selling and behind us are first time buyers , I know some searches have started but not much news in last 2 weeks but I suppose it’s a waiting game now apart from kicking the solicitors up the ass every now and then. 
what’s the standard time in these crazy times to complete ? 

[Soup]

45 minutes ago, grth2004 said:

What’s the standard time in these crazy times to complete ? 

We recently completed our sale in 12 weeks. That was initial viewing to money in the bank. Both our solicitors were on it though which is not always the case

 

A lot are saying about 4 to 5 months is standard now

Edited 17 June 2021 by Soup

[FoyleFox]

1 hour ago, grth2004 said:

Mortgage agreed today which is a massive weight off my mind with being self employed 

no chain above us as the couple split up so just selling and behind us are first time buyers , I know some searches have started but not much news in last 2 weeks but I suppose it’s a waiting game now apart from kicking the solicitors up the ass every now and then. 
what’s the standard time in these crazy times to complete ? 

Great news.

 

Our completion was 4 months, one more person than you in ours. Timescale depends on how quick the searches are and, if they raise any queries, how quick the bank is at completing the valuation etc. All very variable I'm afraid, even with a small chain. Expect 3 - 5 months, hope for 3 - 4.

[grth2004]

On 17/06/2021 at 22:51, FoyleFox said:

Great news.

 

Our completion was 4 months, one more person than you in ours. Timescale depends on how quick the searches are and, if they raise any queries, how quick the bank is at completing the valuation etc. All very variable I'm afraid, even with a small chain. Expect 3 - 5 months, hope for 3 - 4.

Having an issue with the solicitor we chose , I think there all busy with end of June stamp duty rush but to not even answer phone or email is a bit rough , as a business myself I don’t understand that why would you take on more work if your too busy and let everyone down , if I did that I’d lose all customers and be out of business. Think I’m looking at 5 months at this rate. 

Edited 19 June 2021 by grth2004

[rachhere]

On 17/06/2021 at 15:11, FoyleFox said:

Would anyone moving imminently like any packing boxes? I've 30 or 40 going spare, including hanging boxes.

 

Pickfords were supposed to be collecting, but now they're not, and I'll have to take to the tip instead. They are currently in the garden, so you might need to be quick before they're soggy!

If no one on here wants them, it would be worthwhile offering them on your local Facebook pages. There is always someone on the look out for boxes, it would be a shame for them to go to waste. 

[Sly]

For a chain with us and them in it, ours is moving really, really slowly. 

 

It appears the new build bespoke property we are buying, hasn’t had its boundaries registered. 
 

They've been  advised it can take up to 11 months. Our buyer wants to move into our property by the 31st July. 😆 

[Wolfox]

57 minutes ago, Sly said:

For a chain with us and them in it, ours is moving really, really slowly. 

 

It appears the new build bespoke property we are buying, hasn’t had its boundaries registered. 
 

They've been  advised it can take up to 11 months. Our buyer wants to move into our property by the 31st July. 😆 

Oh Bollox …. Hope it gets sorted out soon

[grth2004]

4 hours ago, Sly said:

For a chain with us and them in it, ours is moving really, really slowly. 

 

It appears the new build bespoke property we are buying, hasn’t had its boundaries registered. 
 

They've been  advised it can take up to 11 months. Our buyer wants to move into our property by the 31st July. 😆 

Ouch that’s unlucky mate , surely that’s the job of the developers ? Can’t you claim something off them , I’d be fuming 

[Nod.E]

On 12/06/2021 at 00:04, Nod.E said:

Yeah so turns out they have 100% pulled out. Turns out they had been having extensive conversations with councillors about plans for a new high rise building going up in front of our flat. They've blind sided us and the estate agent, especially considering at 5:30pm on Wednesday they were emailing us directly trying to agree a completion date and by 10am Thursday they'd pulled out.

 

The building site in question has been empty since 2009, we were aware of it before moving in. It has a new buyer of the plans but still no contractor appointed. It's as likely to be built on now as it was in 2009 and in 2017 when we bought it. (The last set of plans ran out of time.) With the current price of supplies and the complexity of construction right by a train line, I can't see it happening, not in the near future at least. 

 

To put all of this into some perspective, the guy wanted written consent that he'd be allowed a cat in the flat from the management company, despite knowing we have one and it also being clear that it's fine in the management pack.

 

If it wasn't this building which may go up at some point in the next 10 years (in the city centre, who'd have thought), it would have been something else.

 

They've just handled it terribly. If someone wants to be worried about a potential building being erected near the flat I can understand the concern to an extent, but you don't wait 6 months and pull out the week before exchange. These are concerns that have evidently (from the email he's sent to our estate agent) been in play for some time. He even mentioned that this is a concern coupled with concerns about the train line that means it's a deal breaker. They have known about the nearby train line the whole time, obviously. 

 

Just feels like they've put their bid down, waited 6 months to decide if they really want to commit and decided 'nah'.

 

What a shocking system that allows this to happen. 

 

Meanwhile the estate agent of the place we were buying believes there's a real chance the seller may not relist and decide instead to do it up themselves. We'll know for sure next week.

 

There's still potential we start over again and manage to end up in that house, but the overbearing feeling at the moment is that it's not going to happen. What a waste of 6 months, money on surveys etc and stress.

 

Trying to convince myself it's a blessing in disguise as the house we were buying is a project house which would have consumed our time, effort and money. Who knows, maybe it would have been too much to take on. Maybe it would have cost us more than we were expecting to do up. I'm not particularly spiritual, but maybe it just wasn't meant to be and this happened for a reason. I don't know, but what I do know is that I just want a house.

Two asking price offers since relisting, so going to best and final now (by 1pm). Asking price represents £2k more than we'd have got on the previous sale. Hopefully with a final price we get a couple grand more and we all but make back the stamp duty savings we'll be missing out on.

 

Seller of the house had said they were giving us until today before considering other offers, so fingers crossed we can get everything back on track today. 

[FoxesDeb]

45 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

Two asking price offers since relisting, so going to best and final now (by 1pm). Asking price represents £2k more than we'd have got on the previous sale. Hopefully with a final price we get a couple grand more and we all but make back the stamp duty savings we'll be missing out on.

 

Seller of the house had said they were giving us until today before considering other offers, so fingers crossed we can get everything back on track today. 

Good luck, let us know how it goes, you never know you might end up better off 

[Leicester_Loyal]

Completion date of 23rd/24th July has been put forward, just waiting to hear back. That's only 4 weeks away ffs, dreading actually growing up

[FoxesDeb]

On 21/06/2021 at 12:31, Nod.E said:

Two asking price offers since relisting, so going to best and final now (by 1pm). Asking price represents £2k more than we'd have got on the previous sale. Hopefully with a final price we get a couple grand more and we all but make back the stamp duty savings we'll be missing out on.

 

Seller of the house had said they were giving us until today before considering other offers, so fingers crossed we can get everything back on track today. 

So what happened? I can't be the only one here waiting to find out! 

[Nod.E]

7 hours ago, FoxesDeb said:

So what happened? I can't be the only one here waiting to find out! 

Sorry!

 

Strangely it went to best and final and they both stood firm at asking price.

 

A shame not to get a bit more out of it, but we take it from a bad situation! In the end the only difference was that one was willing to pay us for some furniture and the other would need us to remove it at a cost.

 

Nevertheless, we have a buyer and managed to have our offer formally re-accepted on the house.

 

So all said, happy. Means we don't have to worry about moving just yet and can enjoy summer. I play a lot of golf, so that's fine by me!

 

What we lose in stamp duty savings we make up for in a higher sale price. With any luck we'll move before the next deadline. Obviously already there with all the conveyancing and just waiting to see if our new buyer can purchase the searches from the previous one.

 

Getting hold of our solicitor during this June rush is proving impossible, so I suppose we'll know more about timelines come July. Could be 4 weeks, could be 12. Who knows! I'd guess somewhere in the middle of that but that's not based on anything really.

Edited 24 June 2021 by Nod.E

[Adster]

Our 2-bed semi just went up for Offers over 195K, two offers of £200k receives so far, so much demand. 

 

Anyone here bought a new build before and got any tips if so? Looking at the Hollycroft Grange development in Hinckley as not much coming on the market atm that we like. 

Edited 25 June 2021 by Adster

[Manini]

2 hours ago, Adster said:

Anyone here bought a new build before and got any tips if so

Yes. What questions do you have? No tips per-say, it’s just the same as buying any other house (I’ve only bought this one tbf) i imagine, but you don’t need to worry about the upward chain. it’s also good as you get 2 years warranty on any internal fittings that need repairing and 10 years on anything structural. 
 

Actually a good tip is see if there’s a site service charge, and if so how much is it, and who is in charge of looking after that. I’d imagine the site won’t have been adopted by the local council so you pay in to a sink fund and a pot to pay for maintenance and repairs. Needless to say it’s a complete ****ing con, but once building has finished you can come together as residents and get them moved on. There may already be agreements in place with the council to adopt all of/parts of the site anyway. For reference ours is about £140 a year so it’s not the end of the world but still something to consider. 

Edited 25 June 2021 by Manini