To ask my neighbours to sell me their garage?

[ElleDubloo]

I want to buy my neighbours’ garage. It’s next to my house. They don’t use it but they probably store some stuff in it. Would it be rude to just knock on their door and ask?

Oh just ask them. Tell them no pressure etc but what do they think? No harm done and you could end up striking a deal.

It's not like they would have nowhere to park since they still have a drive if they sell the garage.

Good lord this thread is bizarre

Why would anyone get offended at being asked if they want to sell something? The answer is yes or no, it's not difficult, and I fail to see why it's offensive.

If they were my parents or grandparents and didn't use it I'd absolutely tell them to sell, they might as well have the money now and enjoy it.

Why should they go without the fifty grand? It will go to those who inherit their estate. The op should expect to pay the fifty plus the cost of the land and the garage. Not expect to get them to take nearly fifty percent of its value because they wouldn’t get it anyway as they’d be dead.

If someone offered to buy my garage for today's market price (let's say 30k) and pay the fees incurred in that I wouldn't say "no because in 10yrs time it would be worth 50k to my beneficiaries" I'd weigh up if the offer would benefit me now and make my decision on that.

If I wanted to keep the garage I'd say no
If I thought I was being ripped off I would say no

@nokidshere I agree.

It seems that some people are very upset by the idea of change to do with property. In this case as though the OP was thinking about chopping off a limb of her neighbour's property and that the neighbours property is going to be maimed.

You see a similar attitude with planning applications where people object when their neighbour's building work will have little or no impact on them. It seems to be the change that bothers them plus the sense that they them selves are being criticised for having not done a particular thing.

My parents and DB were a bit like this. They viewed any building work done by neighbours with suspicion and sometimes downright hostility. Some years after the family home was sold it came on the market again and DB described the perfectly reasonable changes the current owners had made as a 'desecration'. He seemed to think that the house should have been preserved in aspic precisely as DPs had left it.

I think the neighbours could be offended by being asked because they might get the impression that the OP would be trying to con them.

I'm not saying she is, just that if an elderly couple are being asked this I would naturally assume that this might be a possibility. Yes I'm a cynic.

Well let's hope they have a more normal and less cynical outlook huh? I'm a bit taken aback by the idea they will assume they're being conned.

I wouldn't say the Op is planning on conning them, but I don't think, assuming that she's telling exactly their plans that it financially adds up, which then makes me wonder if there's more to it than she's letting on.

Cost of a garage on block round here is around £30k, you see them advertised between £30k-45k anyway.
Reduction in value of a house is over £45k, probably around £60k for one next to the house-and that would count as the majority of garages here are in a block.

So let's say she pays £45k, she's then got the expense of rebuilding it as double. It's roughly £1kper sq m I think building coats, or it was 10 years ago when we had ours built.
Double garage is roughly 3m x5m x2 (just looked it up) so another £30k on top.

So paying out a good proportion of £75k to just get a larger storage area.
Add an extra £75k to our house and you'd get an extra bedroom and probably a bigger garden you could put a shed in-or even a house with a double garage 😁.
So wouldn't it make more sense to move?

Now obviously she may be in a place where housing is cheaper, but then you'd be able to upgrade the house for less too.

So I think this is why people are feeling the neighbours might think she's trying to con them. Because financially it doesn't add up.

I was wondering about that a bit too. In fact I asked way back why it was so important to the OP to get a double garage. If the OP has the money and it's important to them that's fine. I just don't really understand why you would go to such expense for a double garage. But then we have a garage we have barely anything in except some tools and a couple of bikes.

@MargaretThursday

I wouldn't say the Op is planning on conning them, but I don't think, assuming that she's telling exactly their plans that it financially adds up, which then makes me wonder if there's more to it than she's letting on.

Cost of a garage on block round here is around £30k, you see them advertised between £30k-45k anyway.
Reduction in value of a house is over £45k, probably around £60k for one next to the house-and that would count as the majority of garages here are in a block.

So let's say she pays £45k, she's then got the expense of rebuilding it as double. It's roughly £1kper sq m I think building coats, or it was 10 years ago when we had ours built.
Double garage is roughly 3m x5m x2 (just looked it up) so another £30k on top.

So paying out a good proportion of £75k to just get a larger storage area.
Add an extra £75k to our house and you'd get an extra bedroom and probably a bigger garden you could put a shed in-or even a house with a double garage 😁.
So wouldn't it make more sense to move?

Now obviously she may be in a place where housing is cheaper, but then you'd be able to upgrade the house for less too.

So I think this is why people are feeling the neighbours might think she's trying to con them. Because financially it doesn't add up.

I can tell you fancy yourself a bit of a detective.

People have been really helpful on this thread. I wasn’t going to reply to the trolls, but ok, I’ll bite.

Houses around here cost quite a lot. Ours would go for 700Κ. If we move, we’d be looking for something around 1.2M. But there’s nothing on the market in the areas we want. Our location is incredible for a number of reasons. If we stay, we’d be doing a double story extension of our house, extra bedroom, study, en suite. If we manage to buy the neighbour’s garage, we’d knock down (both single garages are old and shabby) and rebuild it as a double garage, do plaster and flooring, and put a ping pong table, couch and peloton in. Yes it would be expensive but then the plan would be to stay for the next 3 decades so really it’s whatever makes us happy...

Does that satisfy?

Or maybe all this explanation makes me sound more defensive and suspicious. Hmm. Maybe you should just call the police.

@MargaretThursday

It's still totally immaterial though isn't it?

Someone knocks on my door and says please can I buy your garage, I say oh hadn't ever thought of selling it, I'll think about it.

I find out how much the garage is worth, decide if I want to sell or not, then get back to the neighbour with a yes or no.

I say to the neighbour, yes ok I'll sell it, the cost is £50k or I say no sorry, it will devalue my property too much.

The ball is always in my court, because I'm the one with the garage.

Perfectly put @nokidshere

I haven't read the full thread so I don't know whether this has already been pointed out, but it might be relevant, especially to the price of the garage.

Looking at the diagram of the site and given the price of housing in your area, a double garage in that side-facing location would be a prime site for infill development. In other words a developer would knock down both garages take a little bit of the back of your neighbour's garden and build a small house which would be a highly lucrative project. At the moment the neighbours own three-quarters of the potential development site. If I were them I would want the price of the garage to reflect the development potential, even if there is no plan to exercise that option at the moment.

OP, sorry you are getting hammered on here. At least you're not asking if it's OK to murder the neighbours and steal their garage. Although presumably that is your Plan B if they turn down your offer!

Just do it, can't hurt to ask.

We want to ask to buy a portion of next doors garden (he can't manage it and doesn't use that part, no children to inherit house, highly likely someone would sell that part of the garden to be built on. We want it for veg garden), but it's hard finding the balls to do it. I wouldn't be offended to be asked, but...