Mum living in annexe - complaint made by a neighbour about this. Can we get in trouble?

[Motherof1and2dogs]

I will try to keep this as short as possible but as much detail as I can. Myself, my husband and my Mum all decided it would be a good idea to sell our previous homes and all move in together, this was down to many reasons, however the agreement was Mum was to have her own independence and own place to live so we agreed to find somewhere with an Annexe. The place we bought was advertised as an Annexe. When we viewed the property the Annexe at the time was just being used for a business and has no kitchen or bathroom, just a toilet so it was more like an outbuilding/ garage and not a proper annexe.

We have been in the new place since October 2024. The Annexe is not yet self contained, my Mum has to use our bath to wash and has a make-do temporary kitchen until we save up to get her a proper kitchen and bathroom fitted.

I have just had a neighbour knock to give us the heads up that another neighbour of ours has complained to the council that we have someone "living in our garage". Can we get in trouble for this?

Our plan was to contact the council when was was ready to start the building process to get planning permission and then make it a self contained Annexe, and understand we would have to pay council tax on this eventually but as it's just 2 rooms with a toilet I didn't think we would need to notify anyone? It doesn't have its own address and Mum uses our address for her post.

I am not really sure what to expect. I really hope this doesn't cause too many problems for us. I don't need this right now, we don't make any noise, I have a 2 year old and I am 14 weeks pregnant. I want to cry because we both work full time jobs, we work hard, pay all our bills, we are nice genuine people and we are being targeted already. One reason we moved is because we wanted a quieter lifestyle (moved from a busy town location to a small village) and it's not been the best experience so far :(

Could someone please let me know what could happen to us in this situation. I'm so worried we are going to have to move again.

Even worse! You are in breach of the permission. Your neighbour is absolutely right, you are in the wrong here.

It will be a breach of conditions of use if it wasn’t approved for residential use - this includes check for eg fire safety. Do you know if it has all its fire regs in place?

Tbh, I can kind of see where your neighbour is coming from - planning regs are there to stop property owners from building unregulated properties and moving additional people into them in various numbers. They also ensure the safety of any inhabitants. I remember another thread some time ago by a poster who was living next door to something similar - multiple people living in a similar type arrangement, and the advice was to contact her planning dept.

You only pay more council tax if you are living alone and have the single person discount and then someone else moves in.

The only thing I can think of is whether there is a planning aspect to it, a change of use.

My DM lives with us but in the same house.

I think you've mis-understood a few things here.

It has planning - as a business/commercial building. Not as a dwelling.

If it has its own door that you can access without going through your house, then it does have its own front door. Doesn't matter if that door is at the front, side or back or whether you have to walk up your drive or through your back gate.

If it has a sink separate to the toilet, and you have put a fridge and cooker in there, then almost certainly it does have a kitchen. The fact it doesn't have a shower or bath is probably not relevant, it may now be a seperate, self contained dwelling.

Get proper advice - you do need planning permission (change of use) and you apply for that to be granted, you don't inform and get it automatically. What if it fails... then where will your Mum live?

Hi, please speak to your local council planning department.

I work in this field and you cannot use an office as a residential building without change of use. As I mentioned above there are case by case issues ie are you in a National Park, Conservation area, proximity to listed buildings etc etc.

But as has repeatedly been said if your mother is living there you are using it as residential irrelevant of what further works have or haven’t been done.

I would hope that your solicitor etc assumed you wouldn’t be moving your mother in till after the works had been done and that’s why they’ve advised you to speak to the council then.

Also please don’t assume having council tax, building regs permission is the same as planning permission. As quite often these different departments don’t speak to each other as much as they should!

OP I think you’ve got yourself a bit confused.

It has planning to be built, yes, from 2012. Presumably that does not cover it becoming accommodation as you’ve acknowledged earlier in the thread that you knew you’d need to get that, so at the moment; your mum can’t live there. If the council find out, they’ll come and assess, and then likely issue enforcement proceedings for your mum to move out.

Have you already applied for the permission to convert the property when you’ve got the money?

I’d ignore your neighbour for now and it’s possible that the council will ignore it or just send you a warning letter, but you do need to consider what you’ll do with your mum until you’ve actually got somewhere legal for her to live.

You say your mum is not ever going to pay any bills .. once this is sorted, now or later, planning or whatever, it will be its own property which incurs it’s own council tax and utilities .. are you saying you’re paying all these for her?

Following your update, yes, you definitely should have applied for change of use before moving DM in. It may not be granted, especially if building/fire regs have not been complied with. (As a new residential build, my DM's annex needed loads of safety/environmental features that are not present in the older "main" house). You should contact the LA's planning department for advice.

If it's correct that your solicitor advised you that this would be okay/compliant, you may have a claim for negligence (although IAAL in an unrelated field, and would be surprised if this were the case).

Yes I agree with this. I can understand why it's irritating for the OP but we'd all be complaining quickly enough if all the back gardens in our street were overrun with cheaply built huts housing five or six single men sleeping in dormitory conditions and without proper sanitary facilities as is the case in certain towns and cities of the UK already.

@Motherof1and2dogs I really wouldn't be taking advice from people here on Mumsnet. At least not on chat. Views vary here as you know, and they can't ALL be correct as the replies aren't all in agreement.

I would phone your council and ask them what can be done with the existing annex ( before approval for other things) and go from there,

I think you are ok at the moment, especially as your solicitor said it would be ok, but I am not an expert.

If she is just going out there and sitting in it say like another sitting room during the day, I can't see that there is a difference between that and someone working there all day in a garden office, or using it in the evening for yoga.

Yes, if you put a bed and bathroom in there it becomes a change of use and you'd need to get planning permission to do that.

The change of use and the building works do need to go hand-in-hand unfortunately. You're strictly speaking in breach of planning control. Whether anything will actually come of it depends on the council - they're mostly massively underfunded. They may well have bigger fish to fry for now, and in any event any enforcement action they do take needs to be proportionate, and they may decide that this is disproportionate. The best solution is for you to take a proactive step and speak to someone in the development control department.

Why don't you speak to the council yourself ?

The council will definitely be interested. If someone has reported it, they have to investigate.

You can’t have someone sleeping in an outbuilding unless it has building regulations approval. It’s a breach of the regulations and they will likely give you an opportunity to comply (an timescale) before serving a notice. And yes, planning permission too. But if it’s already been converted and has had a drainage connection made, it’s likely to already have building regs approval? Any builder with their salt would not have done this without.

It’s always best to be upfront with the council and take their guidance. They are not there to catch you out.

There is a difference between investigating noises that could mean someone or something needed help, and making furtive phone calls to local councils behind someone's back.

I agree with this (but not the tell your neighbour to tell whoever to fuck right off)

If it doesn't have a proper kitchen or bathing facilities then she's not really 'living' in it though is she?

She's living in your house really, as this outbuilding is not really a self contained dwelling with proper facilities. She is having to use the bathroom in the main house.

Surely there is an argument that she is living in the main house even if she is spending most of her time in the 'annexe'/ garage. Her post also goes to the main house.

And that helps how?

Do not contact the council as the cogs will suddenly start moving a lot faster.
Treat your self to a copy of the rural planning handbook, it has a list of planning consultatants in the back and will explain the planning and change of use process. You need to know all the ins and outs of the planning process for you property before you contact the council.
I know most on this thread have said the council will be round quick but in my experience they will only slap an enforcement notice on you if you fit the kitchen and bathroom and then try to sell the house with a residential annexe.
As you are, even though they know someone is sleeping in it, they’ll probably leave you alone.
I don’t think there’ll be a council tax issue at this stage and you can deal with that later. The process is the council ask the valuation office to value the property and then the council will assign a council tax band. It is usually a desk valuation. The council tax department are separate to the planning department and they don’t communicate ime.
Building regs for living accommodation are different to office buildings and you would need that when you come to sell the house.

You may not need planning for the garage conversion but you will need Building Regs. ( PP requirements depend on the local council and other specifics but I would ask them if you need it first )
Without Building Regs as a minimum the space cannot be considered a habitable space and therefore no one can live there.

There are reasons for planning controls - many people are being exploited (search Beds in Sheds) and the use of an outbuilding for residential purposes can easily reduce your neighbour's amenity (doors to the outbuilding opening and closing etc). If you can can proactively show that the conditions in the outbuilding are good and there will be no damage to your neighbour's enjoyment of their property then there may be a route through this.

@Surprise50 yes, we will be paying her council tax if this comes about. We also pay for her food shopping. This was part of the agreement for moving into together. She's also disabled which was another reason we wanted her closer.

There may be building regs issues over her having a temporary oven (needs to be fireproofed, fitted with a detector, exits safety compliant etc) so you need to be sure that the house is safe for you all now in case of a fire, esp if the proper conversion will take a while.

In this case, the ‘busy body’ may actually have a point if you’ve not ensured safety features as it puts you all at risk? Otherwise, everything else is not their business.

Is there planning permission in place to use it as a separate self-contained dwelling (which by the sound of it — sink, toilet, electricity, cooking facilities — it is)? Surely your solicitor talked to you about this before you bought? Not sure this sounds like a great deal for your mother, stuck at the end of the garden in a building probably not built to building standards (so cold and hard to heat).

I think a lot of neighbours are growing weary of the number of households with shed dwellings built in their gardens and Air BnB guests partying. Wait to see what the council says, then take legal advice.

You’re in trouble here OP. You are using it as residential, and you should have declared your mum living with you well before now- she would be classed as a dependent for mortgage purposes which would have impacted affordability.