Splitting house in half

[MagicLlamaStrikesBack]

Okkkkk ... so i live in a 5 bed house in a rural location. Im at the point that I cant afford the mortgage due to some family crap that happened.

Im thinking about splitting the house in half and renting half of it out. I spoke to the mortgage company and they were OK about it "in principal".

I assume I will need to get some plans drawn up and will it need planning permission?

What else do I need to think up / cost before I decide whether to go ahead or just cut my losses and get out?

you will need to try and estimate probable rental income and also the rental market for the proposed property, probably from a local estate agent.
a local builder might give you a guesstimate of the costs of conversion, just an idea without having any plans drawn up or spending any money.
you will then have to balance the estimated income against the estimated costs and try and draw conclusions.
Rental from the property will be liable for income tax. your own council tax banding should come down. you will have to have separate metering for services to the other property, paying for the installation yourself.
your own heating costs should come down, although you have maintenance for both properties.
Without knowing anything about the property,(!) I would guess that this type of strategy would be more successful in an urban setting where this is a more common scenario and a denser population, although this is something an estate agent might be able to tell you.

if you sell the other half in due course it could be liable for capital gains tax unlike your half of the house which is your main dwelling so exempt.

How about renting to a lodger? Just a room then but would help with mortgage

How about renting to a lodger? Just a room then but would help with mortgage

I have split a huge house into 2 separate dwellings ( semi detached). This was a legal split which required planning consent. It was very expensive because the dividing wall needed extra thickness and loft spaces needed separating too to meet fire/building regs etc etc etc. We needed to rejig a lot of the spaces and things like new staircases are very expensive. We had to pay lawyers to split the house, an architect to design and submit drawings etc. And getting separate utilities and meters was costly.

On the other hand I have also split one of these semis into 2 temporarily by just putting a door at the bottom of the staircase and effectively creating 2 flats (there is door access to both levels). I did get gas certificates and declared the income for tax purposes, told the mortgage company etc I let one flat out all inclusive of bills under terms more like having a lodger. But as there were no shared spaces the flat commanded more rent than most lodgers would expect to pay.

HTH

Cheers everyone

Nemon The second way is how I was thinking of doing it, on the basis that the mortgage company wants any changes to be reversible. The electricity, heating etc would all be inclusive in the monthly rental I am thinking of charging.
Did you need planning permission? I can basically put a wall up outside my existing bathroom, which divides the top floor of the house, and by putting up a stud wall in the master bedroom change the ensuite to a bathroom for the rented out hald. Downstairs I would need to split my kitchen in 2 and obviously put in a new kitchen.
My end of the house Id need to put in stairs.

Merci I suppose I am wanting to split the house off because there are basically 3 useless rooms (2 upstairs bedrooms, and the downstairs front room) from looking around the market very few bedsits are on, they are all "shared houses" and because im very messy I would like to maintain privacy, I didnt want shared rooms as such.

tricot Im hoping that longterm I wouldnt need to sell it, and instead could convert it back.

7to25 Thanks for that list, certainly something to start enquiring about.

I didn't need planning because I didn't do anything apart from put door across stairs. I know from my build project that stairs are subject to building regs (tread depth, head clearance etc).

You would need planning permission as you are creating a new unit. You'll also need building regulations approval. With planning- you say you are in a rural area- if your in the countryside or green belt getting consent could be tricky.

Can you not split it into more of flat type of thing? Put in a temporary kitchenette rather than full kitchen?