Anyone with experience of converting two flats back to a house?

[wigglybeezer]

Just that really, we get the keys to the flat below us on Friday and then have to start preparing for planning applications etc.

What proved tricky, any advice about rewiring etc. should I keep the two hot water systems separate etc.?

This is our mid life crisis project!

Literally in the middle of doing this!! There have been some threads on here already - have a look.
Top reflections so far- get familiar with VAT notice 708 / it says if you change the number of dwellings (eg 2 flats to 1 house you pay reduced rate VAT 5% instead of 20%). You may potentially loose the will to live liaising with utility companies to sort of supplies - however if you pay the money you can end up with a single gas meter and electricity meter!! (We finally achieved this, this week).

Our property used to be one house was then subdived and we are putting it back. I found it really useful to get to know my neighbours house to see basically the same house but either divided differently or in an more original state. I also arranged for my architect and structural engineer to visit them to and took lots of photos. This has been really helpful in understanding the house and knowing what to expect behind false walls etc.

We are still having two boilers but running of a single gas meter and water supply. We thought it was important to get everything consolidated - eg one stopcock so no potential nightmare when you thing you have turned off the water/electric/gas and you have only done it to half the house.

The piece we haven't done is sorted out the title deed and address. We only have a single council tax bill - but Royal Mail have both addresses and the land registry refused to amalgamate the titles initially. I plan on sorting that when the work is finished.

Final piece of advice is don't think you can live in one flat while you are doing it. You can't. We moved out and am so glad. The place has been on a single working tap no gas and only two double sockets for three weeks now.

Any questions let me know and I'll bore you senseless

I knew that about the VAT, very helpful.

Did you have to conform to building regs because its a conversion?

I am hoping to keep two boilers( at least for a while) but cut down to one supply, the meters are right beside each other

Our case is complicated as its a listed building so we need planning permission for everything, which we didn't have time to apply for before we bought ( had to pounce). Also, although the building looks as though it is one house from the street, on researching records it was possibly built as two flats or converted very quickly.

It so going to be tricky and it is by no means 100% certain we will be allowed to do what we would like but we decided to throw caution to the wind for the first and last time!

We are planning to live upstairs, it has its own external stair and doesn't need much work done, apart from removing the kitchen.

The first hassle I have experienced is finding affordable renovation / unoccupied property insurance.

I know what you mean about the insurance - cost us about 1k. Lots of policies have lots of exclusions eg no boarded windows. If you are only just about to put in planning would it be worth letting it out in the short term? Especially as listed - planning may be a longer process. Renting it out might mean it if cheaper to insure
We're in scotland and needed planning and building warrant. Not sure if that was due to the conversion or the other work we were doing (removing and moving kitchens). We've taken the opportunity to add a significant amount of insulation, rewire etc. (didn't plan on rewiring it was just easier for the electrician and all the floors were up - not cost us any more).

Are there other similar houses on the street? Are they converted or still single houses. If it is listed does that mean there is info about it. Information about its original state and similar houses can be helpful. We are in a conservation area and we submitted photos of next doors patio doors which we are going to reinstate.

It does feel amazing when you reunite the house, I felt I was freeing the house from the chains of conversion cause I'm a big softie other people may have more rational responses

We're in Scotland too. Our building is the only one of its type in the street, I have found old maps and photos in the local museum but they support the idea that the building was made into flats in about 1865! I may not draw the conservation officers attention to them. The downstairs flat has been lived in until recently by a 95 year old and is very dated and scruffy, not what the local rental market wants at all but we may do that. I am trying to think off the council tax reduction as balancing out the insurance.

I am planning to start removing wood chip to investigate where doors have been filled in etc.

I feel protective about the house too, we have lived in it for along time, more so now I know about the families who lived here in the past.

What did you have to do about the fire regs bit of the building warrant?

I am going to have to fight to get my big kitchen downstairs as a wall will have to come out but I have a plan a, b and c !

Just remembered to ask if you have a mortgage what did the bank say about the work? We remortgaged our flat to buy downstairs and will have to get permission to reunite the titles.

We bought both flats together and I think the mortgage company may not have a great understanding of the situation. And after i tried to get them to understand i gave up as it was in our favour Titles still separate and registry refused to amalgamate on purchase but the bank have a charge over both. I only found out about the still sep titles when we remortgaged for the work, it hasn't been a big problem. apart from stupid solicitors that insist on using the numberXa version of our address rather than number X ffs

We haven't had to do firedoors as we haven't gone over two storey yet. We have permission (but not funds) to do the attic and the building warrant went through with upgrading original doors to firedoors (using enviro graph). Different councils vary on whether this is acceptable. Ours accepted it despite saying that they wouldn't. Edinburgh is okay with upgrading too. Wired fire alarms and sprinklers may be an alternative.

The census should help you work out how many households have been in the house.

All very exciting. So far we have found cornice behind false ceilings, and the original staircase!

The census is what made me realise that it has always had at least two households, sometimes three. It was built by a joiner who had his yard behind the house, lived upstairs and let out the rest. It looks like it should be one house and there is an odd shaped storage area off the hall downstairs that has room for a stair. The story I tell myself is that the joiner was going to live in it, then decided he needed the money from the rent and stuck a rather ugly extension and stair on he back at the last minute. He kept losing members of his family to TB : (.

We have to retain all the original doors, there seem to be fireresistant strips and paints you can apply, we have to adhere to building regs as " far as is reasonably possible" whatever that means.

We have hit so many snags so far, don't get me started on getting a mortgage if you are self employed.

It's exciting but scary!

The strips and paint is what I meant by upgrade. We had a company come up to quote ?lifeline fire protection?? Not sure paperwork packed away. I think on scotland we still need the selfclosers which they don't need down south. they can go missing after you have been signed off if you value your children's fingers Are you sure you need firedoors? Will you be three floors of living space?

I love your story about the TB joiner. My story uncorroborated by any evidence is longstanding family home which ended up with widower living on her own, unable to look after if but couldn't bear to leave it. She continued to live downstairs but converted up stairs to her some money to live off. Fast forward 50 years, family upstairs buy out another elderly lady downstairs after she dies. DH reckons it would be a good investment but want to keep options open and doesn't convert back into one. DW always bit miffed about this and when they sell to me, DW says I told you we should have converted it to DH especially as you are a builder!!! As I say I have no evidence for any of it other than our vendor was a builder. I think I might have spent a little too much time thinking about my house!

We won't be on three floors, I'm sure you are right, I speed read a 250 page doc from Scottish Heritage about the regulations and think I may have read the bit about HMOs. Want to avoid the door closers, would be a nightmare with the cats.

We are actually thinking along the lines of converting back to flats when we are ancient and moving downstairs, it depends on what house prices do, things aren't going up here as much as Edinburgh but it is a "nice" area so there is potential.

I have converted a flat and a shop back to one home in a listed building. The utilities were ok, planning took the required 6 weeks and had one visit from listed buildings. We did have a few building control changes to make and then complied, the only problem I encountered was getting building control changes past the listed buildings officer. Best of luck!

Hello, we're just heading into the last stages who am I kidding of converting two flats into one house.

Off the top of my head - yes the utility changes were awful, took up far too much of my time and cost a fortune too.

Having said that, listed building permission wasn't a barrel of laughs either. And it took time, much longer than I thought. Have you been round with someone from the listings department (or the Scottish equivalent, not sure how different it is)? It's really good to do that early, on, then you can get a feel for what they will and won't go for. You also get a personal relationship with them, which does help.

Then you have to get all the drawings done. We have had to submit drawings not just where we were knocking down walls but of everything, right down to the disgusting 1980s skirting boards we wanted to take out.

Then you wait.

Then - and this is the bit that surprised me - you might get some conditions on your permission. Ours meant that we had to submit drawings of every door, every window and a sample of the outside wall finish.

Then you wait for these to be approved.

Then you start work, several months later than you thought.

But it's not impossible to live in one flat, we've done it for an entire year now. For us, the top flat was quite serviceable, so we got the electrics and plumbing done there quickly, then moved in and kept the door to downstairs shut as far as possible and put up with the manky kitchen. Then downstairs was done over the next year - we're moving into the downstairs kitchen this week, over a year after we moved upstairs and 18 months after we bought the whole thing.

We have one boiler, but then we put in the central heating from scratch as there were only storage heaters.

Insurance wasn't too bad - try asking your solicitor as they deal with insuring empty/difficult houses during probate quite a lot. We found a specialist broker called green insurance, and it was not insanely expensive.

Thanks for all the tips.

I will try and get the listed buildings officer to come out before we submit planning, don't want to waste time and money drawing up plans for stuff we won't be allowed to do. We would really like to knock down and rebuild the rear xtension but we paid more than we bargained for for downstairs so we will have to reassess that.

Luckily for us our next door neighbour is a retired architect who will give us mates rates for drawings and We are trained artists, DH is going to teach himself CAD to do any extra plans we may need.

We would be fairly happy living in a rambling bohemian pile with a quirky layout but selling the house on in ten years is part of our retirement plan so we have to make sure it will appeal to the more usual buyer in this area.

We are hoping to do a bit at a time, would be a pain if we had to submit all the plans upfront but we are not expecting this to be easy!