Fairly dull question but someone on MN will know - Can you knock down one house of a semi-detached without affecting the other house?

[KBear]

We have been approached by a land developer that might want to buy our house to develop land behind it but I'm wondering about the impact this will have on our semi-detached neighbours. If it were me on the other side I would be worried but said neighbours don't seem concerned and think it will be fine to be detached!

Bizarre question but who else but MN will have seen this before? Sorry to be dull.

i have seen it b4...can be done. messy and noisy though. The house that became detached now has stunning extention and double garage FOR FREE!

Yes, can be done. Semi detached houses generally have a double wall between them. There will obviously have to be money to the semi-detached neighbours (probably why they are interested). Make sure that you have a good solicitor involved in the negotiations and paperwork. Bargain hard with the developer.

I'm terrified at the thought of negotiations - must find a good solicitor I think. Don't want to be a push over but have no clue what would be reasonable to expect apart from legal expenses and moving costs of course. 5% + market value? 10%? AAAAH.

Thanks for your replies tho.

Kbear - to do this you would need to agree a 'party wall agreement' which involves specialist solicitors - basically you would have to pay ALL costs involved and it generally means you pay for your neighbours to have a structual survey before and after work has been done and you could be liable to cover the cost of any damages which could occur during the process!!!
Would advise getting a specialist solicitor who knows there stuff about this sort thing!!

If she is selling the house to the developer, it's the developer's problem to get the party wall agreement. All kbear needs to worry about is getting the most she can out of the developer.

SofiaAmes - you're right, bargaining with the developer is my main problem - like you say, they have to sort everything else out. They want my house, it's the only one that solves their problem. I don't want to short change myself if I can make a bit more money to put towards another house. How will I know if any offer they make is reasonable? That's my problem really. I don't want to accept something I think is reasonable but they are laughing all the way to the bank IYKWIM!!

If buying your house is the only way they can develop their plot, they should be willing to cut you a bloody good deal. I'd go for well above five per cent if I were you. Your house unlocks the whole deal so it is really about the profit they make on the development, not the market value of your home.

How many houses are they planning to build? According to my extensive study of Homebuilding and Renovating magazine (I dream about building my own house... sigh...) a commercial developer can knock up a standard three-bed house for 60k. So anything over that is profit. What do new-build houses of the size they are planning fetch in your area? Obviously they need to make a profit or it isn't worth their while, but I'd guess you could negotiate for well above 5 per cent.

Do you like your house Kbear? do you want to move? would you have put your house in the market if they had not aproached you? 5% seems like nothing if you have answered "no" to any of the questions above.

In addition to those questions I would ask...Where would you move to? What would it cost to get something that is substantially better than what you have now (thereby making the move worth the hassle)? And put the number down on paper. Make sure you include ALL the costs of moving like stamp duty and legal fees, ooking up new utilities etc. etc. Put all these numbers onto paper and it will be really clear how much you will need to make moving worthwhile. Then wait for the developers to make an offer. NEVER EVER be the first one to mention a number. You always have a negotiating advantage if you are not the first to mention a specific figure. There are 3 possibilities: a) what they offer is substantially more than what you would need to make it worth your while to move, b) about what you would need and c) substantially less. In all 3 cases you ask for more money, just the amount more is what is different. But if you can, just say, that's not enough, we need more, and let them be responsible for coming up with a higher price. It will put you in a better negotiating position.

(I'm very good at bargaining).

A property developer recently bought my friends house in similar circs - they paid them round about 50% over the market value of their house.

I know someone who did something similar - the deal they cut was to get one of the new houses on the development for free, fully furnished. Don't know if they got cash as well.

Thanks for all this everyone.

The situation is that I probably wouldn't be moving if this hadn't come up. I do like this house but the garden is a big small and that is the compromise we made when we moved here - big rooms, small garden. If we made some money we could sell this (made profit already in the three years we've been here) and put the money, plus what they give us on top, towards a better house without increasing the mortgage. Onwards and upwards and all that.

It's a minefield of scariness though, they are obviously in a better position than us in that they know what they will pay and we have to bargain our way to that figure.

Will wait and see what is offered I suppose then take legal advice and not rush into making a decision.

SofiaAmes - will be CATing you when I need your negotiating skills