Help me with this!

[itsalljibberish]

We are looking to buy a house.
A house that is advertised as being a detached house. Basically the house next to "our" house has an L shaped garden so there's garden between their property and ours, but behind their garden wall.
Upon viewing the property we have discovered that the neighbours have built a conservatory between their house and our house at the side of their property in the garden that belongs to them but goes in between the 2 properties. Not a problem so far, as you can do what you like in your own garden. The only issue is that they've used an exterior wall of "our" property to create a wall of their conservatory. Is this allowed? Would it have required planning? As essentially now the property we like is no longer detached? I'll try and add a diagram!!!

So ours is the yellow door, there's is the blue. There's garden wall (tall) in between the 2 properties and the red is the conservatory that they have built. Hope that makes sense.

The conservatory doesn't stop short of our house wall, they've actually used our external house wall as an internal wall for their conservatory.

And apologies you have to click on the thumbnail to see the diagram!

So the neighbours have turned 2 detached houses into a pair of semis! Presumably this is 'allowed' as the vendors have allowed it, so not much you could do if you bought it. I would avoid!!

Agree with Angry. If you don’t like it but the vendors have accepted it, it’s hard luck really. Even if it required PP and they didn’t get it, do you really want to move in and try to get them to take it down? Not a good way to get to know your new neighbours.

The house is reasonably priced but been on the market for a while. Perhaps this is why. I've googled and any structure you build on your property has to be self supporting and not use a neighbours wall to support it.
Will speak to estate agents on Monday re this as I didn't look closely so it's possibly its their own wall but build right up to the boundary of our wall so it still makes the property semis but at least they may have built their own wall? How annoying.

Buyer beware! Don't buy it if you are not happy with what is there right now. It is as it is.

I'm definitely wary after seeing it. We only saw it when driving away when my husband asked what that roof was joining both of the properties. It butts right up to the side wall of "our" house, but I suppose they could have built a wall of their own with a Cm gap in between. You can't tell from the road tho as it's behind a 6 foot wall so you can only see the roof of the conservatory which appears to touch the wall of both houses.

If you're not happy with it exactly the way it is then do not buy this house!!!

And definitely don't think you're fine with it, put in an offer, get a survey and then decide you're not!

Is it priced as a detached or it is similar prices to local semi's?

It's priced as detached. Upon further inspection I believe they've built their own wall and left about a 1cm gap between their conservatory and our house so I suppose technically it is detached still. Still didn't think they could build that close to the boundary but I'll investigate further today.

Sounds a bit rubbish to me OP, I'd probably walk away from this one and find a house that's on a less cramped plot. Or you can offer semi-detached price as that's pretty much what you'll be buying. I really wouldn't be buying it at the same price as a detached house, it's massively off putting to have another house 1cm away.

It's hard isn't it. The conservatory is at the side of both of our houses, so it doesn't really impact on us bar being close to the boundary of our side wall. There's no windows on our side wall and our garden is at the back so we can't see the conservatory from our back garden. The only way we can see it is when standing outside looking directly at the front of our house. But yes, to anyone going past the property it looks as though it's a semi detached house because of this conservatory. But don't want to pay detached asking price when it's practically a semi.

check the planning permission documents.

have they crossed over the boundary into 'your' property with the conservatory?

I'll need to look at the boundary lines. The closest thing I can find to how it looks is this photo but it's a conservatory not a wooden structure and it's built in their garden to the side of their property but 1cm up to our side wall, so close that it looks joined.

I shall ask the estate agents today. Going to do some research re how far from a boundary a structure can be, as I'm sure when we built our conservatory it had to be a little way away from our neighbours. I know we couldn't remove the fence and put a conservatory wall there instead as it had to be within our boundary not right up to it.

For goodness sake and those of your potential new neighbours find a different house to buy!
What is the point? If you like the house but think it’s overpriced, then put a low offer in and explain why.

I'm just trying to figure out if there will be any potential problems with the boundary lines etc. We like the house and will probably put in a low offer, but want to make sure there won't be any repercussions if we want to sell in the future. There was no planning permission submitted so I expect it came under permitted development. So it's just a case of "can we live with this" and working out if it may cause future problems. For example how could we maintain our side wall if we can't get to it? And would the structure cause damp as there is a very narrow gap between properties so will drainage be ok etc.

I think both a survey and your solicitors should be able to answer the boundary issues for you OP. If you are concerned get a full actructural survey done and ask specifically about these issues. Fwiw, you can get surveys done for much less if you don't use the mortgage companies surveyor - there is usually a huge mark up on them.

*structural

Thank you! Going to book a second viewing this week and go through it all in depth!

If you’re worried about it, then it’s not the house for you. There’s no point at all in wondering if it’s legal or whatever. It is like this and there’s no point in buying it if you want it to be otherwise.

When we’re looking for a detached house, DH wouldn’t even look at houses that were built up to or on the boundary line because there’s always the possibility that your neighbour at some point will want to extend theirs to their boundary and your detached house is now a semi.

Bear in mind that if you buy it and then want to sell, pretty much all the viewers will also be thinking’ ‘it’s not really a detached house’. And, if you’ve chosen to describe it as such, they might wonder what else is more optimistically described than it should be.