Has anyone had any experience of buying the house next door and knocking through?

Our neighbour is selling and we’re thinking of putting in an offer with a view to knocking through (ours is a through terrace and the neighbours a back to back). Designwise we think we can make it work. We know planning permission isn’t required but building regs need to be complied with. We’re aware of how much this might cost and that the value of the new dwelling may well be less than the value of the two separately.

The plan would be to knock through one doorway on the ground floor, strip and clean and then start, probably from the top of the house and work down, doing a floor at a time. Building work would be fairly minimal (biggest thing would be doorways and removing stairs), though we’re aware how this can spiral.

What we’re umming and ahhing about is boilers, central heating, electricity, council tax etc etc.

Any thoughts/experiences would be gratefully received.

For council tax you would get the house revalued. It would still hopefully be less than paying both separate.

Also water bills and water supply would need sorting.

Electricity probably a case of combining ring mains if the number of outlets won’t be too much on each.

Boiler – what have you got now? Will it cope? again just need to link the circuits when you strip everything back. If you have a combi you may want a system type with mains pressure tank for showers etc.

Don’t combine water and electricity badly. Do it properly and be prepared to re-wire if needed.

Is your property mortgaged or would you need to mortgage the other one? if yes ask your lender about how they would feel you messing about with their charge? it would affect the value so most lenders would just say no. one larger property would potentially be worth less than 2 smaller ones and that’s before all the building regs and the nightmare of conveyancing the transfer.

Ta. I think it’s the plumbing/wiring thing that’s concerning me most.

Mortgage wise I’ve already approached them (I work for them) and there’s enough equity in our existing property to raise the funds to buy next door. Conveyancing of it all is a big concern as well.

Just in the thinking about it phase really.

as said above would be surprised if combined property has a value higher than the two single properties – a point i made repeatedly to mrs antigee before she went ahead and bought the house next door, we liked where we lived and wanted a larger house 2 bathrooms, home office etc but it was all sunk money

we left the two property titles separate – no big deal – when selling its no extra work for a solicitor
we replaced a tanked system with a combi – water pressure just about adequate to deal with two showers – had complete rewire as house we’d lived had some “interesting” wiring done by previous owner and next doors was just too old

easy to get council tax sorted but on reflection should have challenged banding found when we had to move for work and rented it out that was probably a band too high compared to other properties – water sort of goes with the council tax as think sewerage / base rate depends on council tax

a two year struggle to get one of the gas supplies disconnected with standing charge and bizarre estimated bills piling up and the boredom of trying to get sorted

be prepared for the hassle of your address “not existing” depending on what database a company uses and where it sourced data from and the age of the data – some systems just won’t accept a “-” between numbers so you can’t enter an address that matches a credit card record – ended up with credit cards with old house number, one with a ‘-‘ between numbers and one with just a space between the two numbers then you could pick one that would work

if you really like where you live it works

Will the new annex be referred to as Crimea? 😉

I’d check fire-regs, especially if the other property is a back-to-back – may need fire-doors at a stair. Or at least need to design out the need for one.

Also check whether it is actually worth it – could you buy a far nicer house already done for the same outlay?

Can’t see how you’d avoid a really odd house layout, mind. Even down to (but not limited to) the arrangement of windows.

Buy next door, move in leaving rest of the family in original house and pop round for your tea of an evening.

I would wire and plumb the two buildings separately, but with a common supply. Careful design of the pipework/cabling will make it possible to easily split the properties again if you needed to.
Rich.

You may need planning depending on local policies – some LPAs have policies to prevent – for example – loss of average-size’family homes’ where there is limited stock locally.

Plenty of scope to turn one of the additonal kitchens/living/dining/bed rooms into a bike store!

We know planning permission isn’t required

Really? Are you sure about that?

It’ll almost certainly be PD. Doing the other way however (converting one dwelling into two) would need full planning.