Mr Lou P and I have seen a barn conversion we'd be interested in buying… Its marketed as a 4 bed, and is on the corner of a row of Mews within the curtilage of a Grade II listed Hall.

The big sticking point we have is the size of the bedrooms – the master+en-suite and second bedroom are good sizes, but the third is 10'5'' x 5'11'' and the fourth is 10'5'' x 6'3'' according to the estate agent measurements.

The rest of the house has good sized rooms – sitting 17'x11', dining 11'x10' and kitchen 10'x11'.

We were thinking that it would be possible to knock through bedroom three and four (they are next to each other) to make it a 10'5''x12'ish third bedroom. So the question is – is a large third bedroom in a 3 bed house more attractive than a 4 bed with two very small bedrooms, or less? How much would converting from a 4 bed to a 3 bed house impact on the price?

Thanks for your thoughts… 🙂

(oh and the OH has already been told he can't have a pump track on the acre of land, and no the father of OH is not putting up a mast for his radio club!)

bumpity bump 🙂

Might this be in South Wingfield by any chance?

I had to look up where that is… so no :-).

You may also require listed building consent to do this.

I don't think we do (if someone knows I'm happy to be corrected). The barns are within the curtilage of the Grade II listed Hall – which I think means you need listed building consent to do anything that changes the look of the building on the outside (including changing the colour of the window frames and stuff like that), but on the inside you can do what you like.

I would suggest that you may wish to check this.

Rightyho, i used to live in exactly the same kind of building (in South Wingfield!), we found that listing applies to the inside as much as the outside of the building so listed building consent would certainly be required along with Building regs approval.

However, how are they going to find out (untill you come to sell that is!!)?

from your description it appears to be internal work to a non listed building that is in the curtilage of a listed building but not in a conservation area. if that's the case then no permission will be required for internal works.

However, as hinted at by other posters i suggest you double check that the circumstances you describe are right, and i'd do it yourself not trust your solicitor, the planning dept should help as they will have time on their hands as no-ones building much at the moment. But don't panic as if its a conversion then internal changes have already been allowed so chances are you'll get whatever permission you need.

For any external works your permitted development rights will be reduced (again see your local planning dept) because of the listed building for a start so a pump track and radio mast will have no chance ;-).

On the question of value, it certainly won't add to it. In this country normal houses are largely valued on bedrooms rather than floorspace (the approach on much of the continent) which is a dumb approach but is the approach. However, yours sounds like an unusual or 'character' property so valuers may have had to take a different approach on it and actually done some research. My guess is hold price or drop 5-10%.

Thanks for that Eddie – you're correct on the listed/non listed/curtilage status (according to what we've been told by the vendor anyway)…. I think that some of the neighbours have made internal changes so it shouldn't be a problem, but I've emailed the planning office anyway – no point in buying if we can't do what we want!

We're not bothered if it doesn't add to the value, but didn't want to see too much of a drop and what you've said sounds acceptable. In my eyes a house with 3 large bedrooms would be more attractive than a 4 bed house with two pokey sized rooms – but I'm not sure that would be the view shared by others…. And it being a 'character' property just means there are fewer other properties to compare it with!

There's a big jump in prices between 3 and 4 bedroomed properties, regardless of how big they are.

You could always put the wall back in when you come to move again..?

And I don't think that using the number of rooms is that dumb of an approach – two small rooms could arguably be more useful than one big one – but in the OP's particular case those rooms are pretty damn small.