Extension - Builders Quotes coming in. Argh...

[Notonthestairs]

They are all consistently and significantly above what we want to spend. By about £30-40k. So I am guessing we just cant do as much as I had hoped.

My question is whether we can adjust our plans to suit our spend without invalidating our planning permission and building regs consent? Do we have to do exactly what we applied for?

I am think of ditching the loft conversion and leaving it until a much later date (maybe never!). Can we do that?

The background in case you need it is that we were hoping to do a double storey extention (side and back) and loft conversion on a 1940's 3 bed semi. Requires knocking down the crap 1970's extension. Would mean we went from 3 bedroom house to a five bed house. We def need 4 beds - 5 would be great but not strictly necessary.

We had budgeted £150k all in. Quotes for the buildings work alone come to the £150k (without VAT so closer to 180K!) and dont include kitchen, bathroom, decorating, tiling. Something will have to give.

[Leopard12]

Not doing the loft extension I think would be fine but check with the planning people, if you only did parts of the what was approved the overall look may be different and null the permission but I know when we had an extension we put in for a conservatory at the same time but didn't do it straight away to save money on designing and getting planning permission again later as the permission lasts for a set number if years so should be fine but double check (and in writing so you can keep a record of it)

[Notonthestairs]

Thanks Leopard. I'll contact the planners and see what they say. The roof will need to reflect whats on the plan to accomodate the other changes I think so it might be that we can just lose the fitting out of the loft but that migt not be enough to knock such a large sum off the overall costs.
I had better talk to the builders too.
Sigh.
Its that or suddenly find the extra £30k down the back of the sofa.

[johnd2]

Yes you can do whichever subset you like. There are no time limits. You can also make non material alterations at any time eg inserting windows or removing them. That is assuming you're not in a conservation area or listed building!
The one thing you do have to do is check the conditions. Every LA puts a condition that you have to start within 3 years (but not finish) and remember they can only enforce positive conditions not negative ones.
So if they say you must build the loft conversion before the ground floor one, then you can't only do the ground floor one. But if they say you must follow the approved drawings then you can pick any parts you like and make any amendments you like as long as the amendments themselves aren't themselves subject to planning permission.
Again, sometimes they add conditions saying you need planning permission for any additional side windows, but check that.
But overall what you propose should be fine. And you can "finish" and add the loft conversion at any time in future.

[Notonthestairs]

Thats brilliant , exactly what I needed to read - thank you Johnd2.

I am hoping it will just be the loft extension that needs to go and we can keep the rest of the plans and that saving will be enough for us to go ahead. I had spent months quizzing friends how much their extensions costs but realise now that they did theirs 6 - 8 years ago and the prices have spiralled since then.

[didireallysaythat]

I'd get your steel calculations done as if you are putting in the loft extension though (if steels are involved).

[namechangedtoday15]

Similar here - we had planning permission for double storey side and rear extension of a 30s semi detached. Quotes much more than anticipated, put it off for a couple of years but still couldn't justify the expense. Ended up scrapping plans for side extension and just going out at rear (although slightly differently).

Planners said informally that we had to apply for a "non material amendment" to planning permission. Officer came out, passed it all then a couple of weeks later we got a phone call saying we had to make another planning application!!

Long story short - I'd speak to the planners but I think certainly here if there is any change to the exterior between what you planned / are now planning or you are in any way closer to a neighbour than you have permission for (none of which seems to apply) you'll have to re-apply.

We're almost finished now but we've gone quite alot over what we anticipated (even though I budgeted very carefully). I'm pleased we scaled back the plans as we really would have struggled to find it.

[TeddyBee]

We did similar for £120k including VAT and probably another £10k or so on a cheap kitchen and bathrooms which we fitted ourselves (with the odd bit of day labour). We're in London. I'd look for more quotes.

[Notonthestairs]

Thank you all. I am making notes and I think we will have to spread our net a bit wider and approach a few more builders. Its interesting that Teddy Bee did something similar for £120 as thats how much I had originally expected the quotes to be. We're in Hertfordshire which I would have assumed to be similar pricewise to London.

[Marmitelover55]

I got 7 quotes for our extension 3 years ago. They ranged from £45k to £80k. We chose second cheapest at £46.5k and are very, very happy with it

[namechangedtoday15]

We're in an expensive bit of the country albeit not London and our quotes for side and rear extension were close to £100k plus VAT nearly 3 years ago and I think prices have definitely gone up, so I don't think your quote is massively out, given that you're having a loft too.

We got a builder through personal recommendations but had to wait almost a year for him to be able to start. I think (where we are certainly) that people are struggling to move up the next rung of the ladder so are staying put and extending so good builders can price accordingly.

[TeddyBee]

It depends on your finish as well I suppose - we don't have any exciting architectural glass etc, just plain old bifolds and velux and standard windows. One of the ways we looked to make ours more affordable was by not finishing the loft conversion interior, it was built to a shell and first fix but we did plastering etc and second fix much later on when we had the money. It was an important saving at the time and probably cost us a bit more in the long term, but we couldn't have financed it all in one go. But we demolished a large attached garage, moved a boiler, demolished and rebuilt a dodgy loft conversion, built a side and rear two storey extension, fitted three new bathrooms (by myself mostly), a new kitchen and a utility room for about £130k all in. The extension is about 60sqm and the loft is, well a loft with en suite. Probably about 20sqm.