DH and I moved into this house back in January, the HR highlighted issues with the garage (poor repair, asbestos roof) and we could see for ourselves on viewing that it had issues (open gaps all around where the roof meets the walls). This didn’t put us off buying and said later we would decide what to do with the garage, the most likely decision being to knock it down. We don’t need it for storage as we have a garden shed and a cellar space under the house.
What would you do if you were us? DH was mulling over repairing it, I said we could maybe knock it down and use the space for parking, seating area etc. I know we would need to get in a specialist tradesperson due to the asbestos issue, but would be need planning permission for this? I’ve added a diagram, we own the strip of land directly in front of the garage but we can’t both park there as the neighbours have right of way over it and need the space to get their own cars out. The garage isn’t attached to our house or our neighbour’s garage either. The garages sit at the end of a lane and the neighbours to the side park here as the front of their houses have walkways instead of roads.