Planning Consent to covert garage to living space - any experience?

[Blu]

We're looking for a house to buy - and I've seen one that could be ideal, but it has a brick garage attached. (30s semi).
Do planning departmenst take a view on converting garages? This is on the edge of a conservation area and I know some people in an adjoining road have recently met with opposition for loft conversions.

I can't bear the idea of paying for land and building to house my derelict fiat punto, it seems completely irrational!

Ooooh - we are hopefully hoping to do the same and convert our garage into a part of a mega kitchen/dining room.

In our road lots of other gargages have been converted.

1. Have a look at the road you want to buy in and see if anyone else has converted. That will give you a good indication.
2. Phone the local planning office and ask them - you might be able to speak to the local officer. They are normally helpful.

That's interesting, Ruby.

It does seem madness that in a crowded part of London, space would be specially built for a car. There is a drive in front of the garage, so we wouldn't be adding to on-street parking.

In any case, as our reason for moving is to be within walking distance of DS's school I might well do away with the car.

Might require Buildings Regs rather than planning permission as such. Other properties may have already set a precedent, you could have a look online if your Council has an online system to see what has been passed (but perhaps not yet actioned)recently for that area, and /or speak to a Planning Officer who should be able to give you an idea of what consent may be required plus any restrictions.

We looked into converting our brick built garage into living space and were told we only needed to adhere to the building regulations, rather than get planning consent. Might be different if the garage is attached to the house though. HTH.

I know what you mean, blu, nowadays garages can seem a waste of space..we converted our garage in our last house, wasn't attached to the house tho. We only converted it to an office/playroom though, not 'living' space that someone would sleep in or whatever. But we needed no permission at all, not even building regs; I phoned the council twice, as I really couldn't believe we needed nothing, but that was correct.

Maybe building regs would have been needed if it was a different scenario like yours though; it's the council you need to speak to. We found them very helpful.

good luck!

we converted our garage into a dining room in our last house, that was 5 years ago. We needed planning permission back then. At the time we converted, you had to have parking space for 2 vehicles if it is a 3 bed house, 3 vehicles if 4 bedroom etc, and as the garage is considered to be a parking space, if you remove it, then you had to provide alternative parking, i.e. block pave the front lawn so as to act as a parking space if your parking outside the house is not sufficient. We had parking for 4 cars on our driveway so this was not an issue for us.

I once went into a house where the garage had been converted into a home office but still had the garage door on the outside; don't know if this was to circumvent planning regs or to leave it still useable as a garage if the next owners wanted to. (Was a 3-bed house with a drive plenty big enough for at least 2 cars)

(It had a rooflight window put in btw)

There's a company based in Crawley who specialise in this run by a woman who knows what she's talking about.

You do need planning permission but you get it 90% of the time.

What about making it a 2-storey extension with a garage underneath? Or extending behind the garage next to the kitchen? Or both?

Thank you all - great ideas! the house in q has been snapped up - so we're back looking at the documentation for the one that has been underpinned....

Hi - dont know if Spidermama is still reading this. Was that company in crawley Morespace? just wondered if you knew someone who had used them and recommends them? Im thinking of a garage conversion and I think they cover my area too.

Any other suggestions appreciated too!!!!

Thankyou Kizziex

Ours is being done as we speak. We enquired with the council who are getting back to us but it looks like it will be building regs only.

I can't wait for my lovely office to be finished.

We just had this done last year. The house we bought had a 2-storey extension with garage on the ground floor, as we preferred it as a living space - second reception/living room type of thing. We had to have building regs but no planning permission, as the 'footprint' of the house didn't change.

That said, building regs were long and involved - they require six different site inspections at various stages, although this was maybe because we converted one end to a downstairs laundry/wc, and so had plumbing/sewage work done.

Actually, the council were going to withhold building regs as they hadn't been out to look at the damp-proof membrane before the new floor went down, but were OK about it once the builders showed them the receipt for the membrane. There are 5 inches of insulation in the floor, which either means digging it out or having a small step up and lower ceiling. Luckily our walls were already double brick with cavity as they had the top storey on them.

Our conversion cost just over £30K, but this included lots and lots of plumbing (also had an ensuite shower put in upstairs at the same time to take advantage of the new plumbing and drains) which was the expensive bit.

I'd say go for it - most attached garages are too narrow for modern cars anyway. Some specialist garage conversion firms warned us that you shouldn't use a local builder, but we did and it was fine, and from the exterior and interior you can't tell it was ever a garage. The specialist firms quoted about 30% more than the local builders for the job.

Have any garage converters given up access frr teh front of the house to teh back from the outside? Is this not a bit of a pain - getting bins out, kids bringing bikes through teh house etc? Any suggestions that have worked please.

Thanks for all this info - really really useful. Ive just contacted a specialist company in Crawley to see if they cover as far up as us (Surrey)- and will see what they come back with.
Also going to try some local builders - although this is the bit I find really difficult (!)
Kizzie x