Converting to flats

[Arthur 51]

Hi all. Just toying with the idea of converting my mid-terrace to flats. Any good sources of info for this?

Thanks.

Arthur

[Owain]

Local authority planning dept Local authority building control dept Local estate agents will be able to advise what conversions usually go for Sarah Beeny's book

Owain

[dom]

It will depend heavily on how your "mid terrace" is constructed. Building regulations has a lot to say about fire protection, means of escape and sound insulation that applies to buildings converted to flats.

[George]

As far as I'm concerned houses should stay as houses and not be converted into flats...keeps the riff raff out of decent quiet residential areas.

[Arthur 51]

A decent area is where I do not live. There is a woman across the road from me with stone clad face to go with her stone clad house. Although these 2 things are probably more attractive than her liver.

Arthur

[George]

So that makes her the riff raff does it? private landlord sector bring in the riff raff because they cannot get decent tenents to fill their flats so they start letting to DHS.

This is area Im in 20 years ago was a quiet area,Private landlords moved in with buying up the properties to make into bedsits and flats...Ill leave it to your imagination to visage what happened to this area.

[Mogga]

Indeed. I think councils should insist on prohibiting the rental of property as it degrades areas when done to excess. Whoops that'd cheese off the BTL lot though

[The Natural Philosopher]

I think it might bring a dose of reality to those who consider that a house that represent 3-5 man years of labour to build, plus access to infrastructure massively more than that, is theirs BY RIGHT at the age of 18, never having done anything productive in their entire lives.

People in the 1930's didn't have sex or get married for fear of babies they couldn't afford, until the man had somehow achieved enough income to at least *rent* somewhere to live. Often that was in their mid thirties..with a wife in the late 20's..prior to that they would live at home or in 'digs'...

[Tony Bryer]

Over my back fence is a boarded up house that was let out as bedsits (by the Council who owned it, now Housing Partnership) until five years ago. The planners will not allow it to be turned back into a single family house - if they were to allow it the HP would trouser £1m+ and the new owner would probably spend £500K+ restoring it. That's a lot of VAT and Stamp Duty being lost.

The plus side of today's rental market is that tenants are in a prime position compared with a generation or two ago. My father let out flats in the era when it was quite unfashionable to do so, and when I was a child (early 1960s) each box number advert for a flat would bring in 200+ replies. If you weren't a married couple both in salaried jobs you didn't even get to the shortlist. Do you want to go back to those days?

[Derek Geldard]

Or even 16

We won't be agreeing on this one.

My grand mother was widowed (Husband killed in WW1) with 3 kids before she was 21. Her next husband was gassed in WW1 but survived in very poor physical and mental health, they said the pain drove him crazy. All her 5 children were married at age 17 or 18.

You could rent a house for half a crown a week, and could give a weeks notice and move if you came across a better place.

DG

[clot]

Interested and amazed at the info. in your response. Attitudes and circumstances changed post WWI into the inter war period? I do't know the answer to the question I pose.