Everything always takes longer than planned when you're building a house, right?

[TimTamTerrier]

We haven't even managed to buy the plot yet, it's a complicated situation of an executor's sale and now the person who inherited has also died. The law of shitty averages surely says that because the first bit is taking for ever and is horribly complicated it means that everything else will run smoothly? (I know that this is not the case, but agree with me and I'll be happy until the next thing goes wrong.)

I'm also quite worried about planning permission, and we will need to sell the house that we are currently living in part way through the build. If we can't sell this house then the build will stall as we won't have enough money. The house next door to us went up for sale last year and they had very little interest and ended up taking it off the market without selling. We will be stuffed if that happens to us.

Could you put your house up for sale already and just rent while you're building?

For self building or extensive renovations you need nerves of steel. Halfway through, when everything has taken at least six months longer than expected, you will hit the wall of despair!
Never again, you say, but plod on because it's too late to turn back. Once finished you forget all the anxiety and a couple of years later begin to talk about the next project!
A bit like childbirth!

Friend has just taken over a year to buy a house where the owner had died due to slow solicitors, probate etc.

We decided to extend our house a few years back. It took over 2 years to get planning permission. Not because we wanted anything wild but because different planning officers in the same council couldn't come to a consensus.

Good luck !

We were in a similar situation to you. Our purchase took 6 months to go through. Currently living in a surprisingly warm and cosy caravan on our plot with 3 DC's!!

We paid for our local planning department to come out and give us pre-planning advice before we bought the plot and put in full planning. We should hear this week of the outcome but fingers crossed as all in policy guidelines and we followed advice to the letter we will get what we want.
You definitely do need nerves of steel. There have been many, many tears mostly mine Some days I absolutely think we have made the right decision, others not so much, but we are in it now and there's only one way out! Go for it.

We have to build two houses, partly because it's a big plot and the council are very keen on increasing housing density and they probably wouldn't give planning permission for just one house. A developer would have put six to eight houses on it so we're hoping that the council won't ask for more than two houses. We also need to build two because the plot was quite expensive and we would like to make a bit back.

Fortunately we can afford to buy the plot and build the first house, a small 4-5 bedroom detached house. Then we will move into that and sell the current house, which is the part that's causing me anxiety, and use that money to build the dream house. We're in Dublin and the rental market is bonkers at the moment, even if we could find a house in the right place that would accept a dog, it would cost a bomb.

I'm full of admiration for Berries2 I don't think I could cope with living on the site in a caravan. You must be very organised and tidy. I couldn't see it working for me, two DC (one with asd who is quite moody and disruptive and needs his own space), an au pair, a shaggy dog and a husband who often works from home.

It'll be fine (I keep repeating that, because then it'll become reality). It's just quite long even if everything goes to plan, and already the plan is slipping a bit.

It will be fine!! Its my mantra also at the moment. We hope to build 2 houses on our plot as well but concentrating on just the one for the time being. To be honest once built and if we can secure planning for another we will probably sell it off plan.

Caravan living not too bad. Amazed at how much less the the kids have learned to live with without any fuss and spend a lot of my time wondering what the hell I have put in the storage container as we dont seem to be missing much at all! Learning to live with clutter has been my biggest personal challenge and a whole new thread...

How long do you think it will be before you're into your new house Berries? We've had a few offers to buy a slice of land from our plot, but financially it works better for us if we build a smaller house first, live in it and then sell it because we don't have to pay any capital gains then (capital gains is higher here than the UK).

Well, initially we said 18 months to 2 years. 24 hours later in a caravan in the middle of December and we reduced that timescale to a year! Probably totally unrealistic but we are quoted a 22-25 week build / refurb. Desperately want to be in for Christmas, kids are only little once

Definitely sounds like you are doing things the right way round. Our plot is partially green belt so added complications with building for a second house which is why we are concentrating on somewhere to live first.