Converting Victorian house into two Flats

Hi All,

We have a large Victorian 6 bed semi house and are considering converting it to two flats one ground floor two bed and upper two floors to 3 bed.

Has anyone experience of this, or can point me in the right direction for more info.....we are only at the information gathering stage but wish to be as informed as possible.

Many thanks

James

The message from "James" contains these words:

No information on conversion as such but you will require planning permission for the change and I have heard that some councils can be particularly awkward over that if they think multiple occupation is out of keeping with the area.

Whoops! bloody hell is that my insurance quote. :-)

-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite

I'd second that - go and have an informal chat with a planning officer at your local council just to run it past them; you may find that there's a blanket ban on such conversions so that you idea is a non-starter.

Another tip is to talk to local estate agents about the idea; it's possible you might even find that the 6 bed house is worth more than the two flats, depending on circumstances! Or maybe locally there's a huge demand for one and not the other? Whatever, they should be able to give you rough valuations for the completed flats versus the house, which should help you start thinking about whether it's worth even contemplating.

David

You may have to provide off road parking

Yes, good point: lack of space for parking the inevitable extra vehicles is a common reason for rejection of planning permission applications for conversions like this.

David

Is this still true in these days of rabidly anti-car councils? I've read of developments being deliberately built without any parking at all.

Those will be where the developers grease the palms of the council - after all houses yield more profit than parking spaces. But different rules apply to a private conversion?

In this borough (LB Richmond) they are anti-car and take the view that if you've got nowhere to park a car you may not get one and are more likely to get upset over what they perceive to be too much parking.

I would take informed advice as to likely values: round here large Victorian houses are worth more as a single house than the sum value of individual flats and our council for one will resist applications for reverse conversions (i.e. turning two or more flats back into a single family house).

I've even heard of one where you have to sign a covenant that you do not own and will not purchase a car, unless you have somewhere else to park it.

All of which highlights the need for local knowledge, and asking the local planning people about all of this!

(I certainly know of someone local to me who is trying to get permission to split a large building up into flats; the sticking point is that the council are insisting on an average of 1.5 off-road parking spaces per flat, which has instantly placed an upper limit on the possible number of flats, which is lower than the number he wants to convert to.)

David

Standard LB Richmond planning condition for new developments with no off-street parking is to make them permanently ineligible for residents parking permits. As Lobster says you really need to do your homework.