If you have an Annex....

[Schooldil3ma]

....what do you do with it?

I'm really keen on a house that has an annex that we don't really need at the moment. Of course it would be lovely for when people come to stay, and I can see it would be ideal for giving a teen a bit of independence but we aren't at that stage yet.

Does anyone let theirs out, either as a Mon-Fri / holiday let / something else? Use it for an Au Pair? Something else?

I'm very clueless, I've never been in a position to have an annex before!

Can you afford the house anyway or do you need the income from letting it out to pay for it? Because if you can afford the house then it doesn't matter if you use it or not, it's entirely up to you.

You could rent it out for storage if you don't want someone living there. Another alternative is to rent it to someone who wants it as an office to WFH, but doesn't have enough room at home.

@Huckleberries73 is that a lot of faff then, do you love somewhere touristy?
@Mosaic123 we could afford the house anyway, but not well off enough to sniff at earning a few thousand extra a year
@TooExtraImmatureCheddar the working space idea is genius! They could use it as an office, leaving weekends free and save the hassle of stripping beds etc.

@Huckleberries73 that sounds like a dream, so they just let you know what dates it's booked for so you don't get any surprise. What a wonderful passive income as you say, do you just add it to your tax return each year?

We have one that was part of the decision making in purchasing our particular house as we were going to use it as a 'Granny Annexe' for my MIL. She decided in the end to rent a flat locally so we spent some money renovating it and it is now a guest room with en suite upstairs and my husband's office/gym downstairs. It works perfectly for us as we have a small 3 bedroom house and with a second DD on the way it means guests can have their own space away from the children. It wouldn't work for everyone but suits us down to the ground. I say go for it!

I think you pay extra council tax on an annexe which you need to bear in mind. It

This is really funny - I came on to MN to see if anyone had ever put part of their home on AirBNB!

We built a one bedroom annex for my Mum, which she happily lived in for 15 years or so. It has now stood empty for a while, and is used to gather clutter for us, but DH is adamant that he doesn't want to rent it to anyone as a permanent home.

I was just thinking about the possibility of offering it as an AirBNB - it can be closed off from our house securely, has it's own front door and entrance to the garden. Any income would help towards the cost of running the house. We could also make it unavailable when it was inconvenient for us to have people around.

OP - you will always find something to fill space - if the house works for you and wouldn't stretch you (unreasonably), go for it!

We used to have one and mainly used it as a guest house. We did let it for a while to someone we knew for £800 a month.

Check whether there are any covenants attached to its use before you buy. We've just bought a house with one built for an elderly relative. There's a covenant that it has to be used for a relative of the family and can't be rented out separately (eg as a holiday let).