Knocking a door through party wall

[decembrist]

Hello! I can't find the answer to this anywhere else so am hoping the wisdom of Mumsnet can help.

We and our neighbours want to knock a door through between our two terraced houses. (We're close friends, spend lots of time together, exchange babysitting favours and meals all the time etc.) But we want to do this without turning our two houses legally into a single property. Is that possible? What legal hoops will we have to jump through?

Thanks for any thoughts or pointers!

I'd speak to a solicitor , your mortgage company will probably need to know. It would be pretty unusual , if you came to sell the house you would have to factor in put it back to how it was. You would probably need building regs approval.

I would also suggest checking with your household insurance too.

Just swap keys and have done with it. Anything else will be more trouble than it's worth.

it would be very much less trouble in every way to provide a gate in the garden fence so you can pass via the back doors.

It might be more visible to neighbours though if that matters.

Thanks! Yes we've already swapped keys and will take down part of the fence :)

Talking to a solicitor sounds like a good idea.

You'd need it to be a fire door with 1 hour resistance. This is much above the 20 minute requirement for protected stair way.
Apart from that I can't think of any building regs that would scupper it.