Neighbour’s garage conversion will devalue our house

[PeedOffNeighbour]

NC’d as previous posts give away the area I’m from.

My house is ‘link detached’ - separated from my neighbour by their garage.

They have applied for planning permission to convert their garage to a habitable room and this has been successful.

My written objection was thrown out - I said that essentially it would make my house semi detached and this would adversely impact my property value (backed up by local estate agents I consulted).

I am now reviewing my options and rule nothing out. Does anyone else find the approval of such plans utterly unfair?

I think garage conversions are fairly standard these days,

I live in a small village and a number of homes have had it done. That said, they are all detached.

I think it’s a risk you should have realised when you bought, Ultimately it means you can do the same and gain an extra room.

What “options” are you reviewing? If their planning was approved you don’t have any choice, they can proceed with the work.

How does it devalue your house? I don’t understand sorry…

I agree with another poster- perhaps explore having your house extended in a similar manner this clawing back sone value and providing you with more space (although I disagree with you that it's rotten that their work is allowed to go ahead when it is set to devalue your property and I would absolutely be upset in your shoes)

I would presume someone would buy a house like this in order to do that very thing to be honest. Isn’t there a gap? If not then it was always semi detached in a way ?
What do you mean you rule nothing out, makes it sound like you’re going to tie yourself to the garage when the builders arrive!

"Link detached" is just "semi with delusions of grandeur, though". Do they really carry much more value than a semi?

I suppose you could always refuse permission for them to come onto your property in any way, and not allow them to attach anything to your walls.

Are you attached by your garage? Or by a room?

Not that I think you can do anything, do you have a garage?

The houses are all detached but the garage for each house is sandwiched between your house and the neighbour, repeat. By allowing a link detached house to convert their garage you make yourself and the neighbour you are attached to semi-detached as a habitable room is now next to you. Some have both garages next to each other so house, garage, garage, house. Most are house, garage, house, garage. It isn't a semi-detached house. It is detached with a garage space in between each one, usually considered better than a normal detached house on a new build estate which is often only 1m gap between for the paths to go down the sides of the houses.

Usually they are not allowed to be converted. It is often in the deeds that the garage is to remain a garage. Planning usually deny change of use to habitable dwelling because it changes the street scene and affects the house next door, as OP has described, devaluing their house in doing so.

Surely you mean you agree with op?

I'm suddenly noticing so many posters saying the opposite of what they appear to mean.

I work for a council, and the perceived value of a house or fears of a house devaluing is never a reason to reject a planning application.

It’s a long established principle that property values aren’t a planning consideration. You won’t ever win with that argument.

Your house is the same amount of attached and detached as it was before. Link detached is an oxymoron

I think that should only be allowed if garages are adjoining garages. Otherwise, and perhaps this is harsh, they should be made to compensate you on losses if you ever do sell,

Your local planning office will have guidance laying out which grounds of objection they take into account. Unfortunately the value of your home won't have been one of them.

Your planning office should have informed you of the application and directed you to their website with guidance on what grounds they considered relevant. If they have failed to do that correctly and you were not able to identify and understand the relevant grounds for objections, you may be able to complain about that. But they may have given you paperwork that signposted to the guidelines, yet you didn't fully digest them before writing your objection.

It's a bit like school appeals - sometimes the reasons that carry weight in the decision making aren't the ones that feel like the biggest imposition, so you need to understand the rules of the game. Loss of light usually weighs heavily, for example, whereas value of property generally doesn't even though it is more important to many people. Planning offices are often quite helpful on this if you phone them. I guess it might not be all that helpful to be told this now.

Next door converted their garage, which was next to our carpeted stairs, into a living room then had the absolute cheek to complain that they could hear people going up & down the stairs. I had no sympathy.

As PP says loss of property value for neighbours is not a relevant factor in planning decisions.

It might be worth checking your deeds just in case there is something saying garages cannot be converted - if you have this restriction, chances are the neighbours do too. No idea how you’d enforce it though.

One option would be to make peace with your neighbour’s garage conversion and not worry about the theoretical devaluation of your property. This option does not require you to expend any further time or energy on the matter, and does not require any expenditure on your part.

Sorry OP, how will this house change your house? You’re still a link detached. They might have used their garage for band practice, perhaps as a gym, or washing machine in there, the fact they’ve now applied to officially convert it has not changed your house as the space was always attached to your house 🤷‍♀️ There was someone on here recently whose neighbours extension was pretty much up to their wall, where once there was space between them, council allowed it, now that’s a change that’s hard to accept!

Because it will then be attached by a used room, rather than a garage.

however, I think it's tough luck, the family need/want to turn it into a useable room as many do. 🤷🏻‍♀️

We used to live in a link-detached house which was set up as house-garage-garage-house. Our neighbours wanted to convert their garage into living space. In theory, if you are still separated by your own garage, then both houses should continue to be classified as linked-detached. However, if your neighbours convert their garage, then they should expect that you (or a future owner) might want to do the same at some point. Each house would then be classified as semi-detached, which would negatively impact the value of both properties. We discussed the situation with our neighbours and agreed to property detach both houses by splitting the party wall in two with a 20cm gap and sharing the cost. Both our houses are now classified as proper detached. We live in the London commuter belt where property prices are high, and detached houses sell for about 20% more than similarly sized semi-detached houses, Therefore, from our perspective, it has been worth it, as the increase in value of our property has been a lot more than the cost of our contribution to the building work.

What a great solution!

OP why don’t you speak to the neighbours and see if they would consider in effect detaching the houses? Get a valuation for your being detached.

Surely you could put a similar planning application in? Planning rests often on precedent, not how much Mrs Miggins at No. 38’s house is worth.

House prices are not a material planning consideration for planning applications. If you want to successfully object to a planning application you need to identify factors relating to planning policy (found in the NPPF and your councils Local Plan).
for extensions this would typically be those relating to environmental health, access to light, access to the properties or services. It would be very unusual now for a garage conversion to be refused permission given recent planning reforms to make domestic extensions easier and faster to approve

I do mean AGREE! I don't know why I seem to have such terrible typing skills at present!

I would be worried about the noise. I doubt the garage is insulated in the way the house would be.