Do I need PP to partition my house into two family divisons

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I live in a large 3 bedroom extended house, and somewhat it is under utilised, and recently my cousin sister was having a bad time at her job, so having had a son 4 years ago, she has been working 3 days a week, and her fellow lost his job and they can no longer afford to bring up a child and pay the mortgage for their 1 bed house, so I suggested to them to rent out their house to pay for the mortgage and move in with me, doing my bit to help family in days of need, until her fellow gets another steady job and also they can save a few bob, as I won't be charging them any rent except they chip in towards the utility bills. They could stay for a couple of years or until they are financially stable again to move back into their one bedroom house or upgrade it to two bedroom house as their son would have grown older and will require a separate bedroom. and they can live in my house for as long as my own circumstances don't change.

So I have 3 rooms upstairs, of which they can occupy I master bedroom for themselves and one room for their 4 year old boy, or use it as a living room, and the 3rd room could be converted into a simple practical kitchen, nothing fancy, and a small dining table and chairs. and of course upstairs bathroom will need a new electric shower as my single combi boiler downstairs won't be able to cope with both our hot water needs, i.e.s taking a shower at the same time and run two kitchen sinks with hot water, so I may even need to install a separate hot water heater for upstairs kitchen, all this being as planned as a temporary arrangement.

I could move all my stuff downstairs, where I have 3 receptions, so i could use one as my bedroom and leave one as a reception and 1 reception I use as my dining room, I already have a big extended kitchen downstairs, and luckily we have two separate bathrooms on each floor, CH will be supplied of my boiler from downstairs but I can install a zonal valve and a a separate thermostat for them to control upstairs part independently and so on.

So my question is can I erect a temporary timber framed dry wall, to section off along the staircase, thus cover the handrail and spindles with plaster boards, all the way from the ceiling to the floor, and at the bottom of the staircase 3 or 4 feet further I can fit a main door for them leading them into the common hallway, which will then lead them to the common main front door,

I could then section downstairs with my own main door again leading into common hallway, which again will lead me to common external front door.
Both our main doors will open into a common hall which leads to the main front door.

Will I need to apply for a planning permission or should I just go ahead and hope for the best? Remember I am not really converting this house into 2 separate flats but just keeping our privacy and security, so we don't accuse each other of having our things missing etc. and breath over each other's shoulder, and occasionally they could come down to use garden through my portion.

I think we could all do this kind of thing, parents helping their kids to get on living with them but with their own space and privacy in this day and age of uncertainty and expense and house prices beyond reach of the ordinary folks.
 
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Think fire safety then get a designer on board.

The last thing you will want to do is see your charitable offer backfire.
 
Without knocking your charitable offer, Has your relative explored all possible benefits. There is housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit and jobseekers allowance amongst possibly others. This may well be a more sensible option in that they may be able to stay in their own house and avoid any possible planning issues for you.
 
Think fire safety then get a designer on board.

The last thing you will want to do is see your charitable offer backfire.

If you mean by fire safety an alternative fire escape route, and early warning smoke alarms, then there is not a problem as all the rooms upstairs have at least one window that opens, and the one I am intending to convert to a kitchen/dinner window opens to a flat roof of the G/F kitchen extension, I am going to choose this room for ease of drainage from the kitchen sink.

May be I think I will go and see what the planning department says. and exactly what their minimum requirements would be, but if I did that, they would interpret it as if I am actually permanently converting my house into two separate dwellings, and of course the LA would love that wouldn't they because they could then charge individual CT for each dwelling separately, and then I would have the problem of registering this with the land office, provide separate utility services, separate meters, and that also means paying more charges in standing charge to utility companies. Look at the hassle of trying to help your own family members!
 
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Without knocking your charitable offer, Has your relative explored all possible benefits. There is housing benefit, council tax benefit, child benefit and jobseekers allowance amongst possibly others. This may well be a more sensible option in that they may be able to stay in their own house and avoid any possible planning issues for you.

Yes, she herself works at a Job Centre and deals with people unemployed and so on, this is not her option to sign on, she is happy to bring her son on as well as work 3 days a week, and pays a child minder for those 3 days, her fellow is the problem, he is self employed and gets short term contracts, as a courier, so he is not going to sign on either.

I absolutely don't mind helping them since as i said my house is under utilised,
but I think I will find what the council might say about building temporary internal partitioning into as if they were two households.
 
you may be liable for 2 council tax amounts possibly off a lower band but will still be perhaps 40-80% more
 
We have a divide exactly as you describe to keep the heat in. Its been here longer than we have.. so I don't see how it would 'alert the council' to two families living in one house or alter council tax arrangements..


our last house had two kitchens (one up one down) it made no difference to the council tax either .. (it was a historic kitchen and I don't know if I had 'sign off')
 
I wouldn't have thought that this temporary arrangement would need any PP as it is not intended as a permanent conversion to two separate flats each with its own separate utility services.

I will call my Local planning dept,. to see what they say. But if they say I will need PP, then I am not going ahead to help someone out of my way.
If they fail to pay their mortgage and their house gets repossessed, and they become homeless, let the LA house them, not my trouble then is it, either they allow me to help them at my terms or it is their headache. :cry:
 
please do it anon to make sure you keep below the radar

you should only pay extra council tax if you have an extra " catering " area that can be used remotely by another part off the household a granny annex for example
my friends that had a 3 story house with a main kitchen and a secondary kitchen but only 3 bedrooms had to remove the small secondary kitchen as the layout meant the downstairs small kitchen could be locked off and have its own outside door toilet and bed room even though it was just an internal door separating the ground floor from the rest off the house

in other words its your councils interpretation that matters not ours :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for your coms. , I see your point, raising CT is not as much of a problem as is the worry of having to convert it as a bonafide two separate flats, with split utilities, and with proper building regs, which may require more than I bargained for, like sound insulation,fire proofing floors, and planning approval, in which case it may be cheaper to pay my cousin's mortgage rather than to spend tens of thousands of pounds on a proper conversion.

A simple division can be erected easily and taken off easily without incurring much in way of budget.
 
We have a divide exactly as you describe to keep the heat in. Its been here longer than we have.. so I don't see how it would 'alert the council' to two families living in one house or alter council tax arrangements..


our last house had two kitchens (one up one down) it made no difference to the council tax either .. (it was a historic kitchen and I don't know if I had 'sign off')
...and then when there is a fire and people die, the fingers start pointing.

It's one thing to have a dual facility in a house just for the fun of it and then have a family actually living upstairs.

Would they be having their mail re-directed?
 
Building Regs and house insurance (or lack of) issues aside in the council’s eyes you will be trying to create a separate dwelling, once its been up and running for a couple of years then it will become immune from prosecution so gain permission via the back door, and why would they allow that?
 
We have a divide exactly as you describe to keep the heat in. Its been here longer than we have.. so I don't see how it would 'alert the council' to two families living in one house or alter council tax arrangements..


our last house had two kitchens (one up one down) it made no difference to the council tax either .. (it was a historic kitchen and I don't know if I had 'sign off')
...and then when there is a fire and people die, the fingers start pointing.

It's one thing to have a dual facility in a house just for the fun of it and then have a family actually living upstairs.

Would they be having their mail re-directed?

IF there were a fire...and I was sleeping upstairs I don't see how the divide would put me at any level of danger... I'd still have 2 exit ways.. if my mum moved in - she'd be at no greater risk... surely it depends on fire exits which we can't see from the opening posters.. post. and how 'over crowded' a house is -as far as I can see its not a huge risk..

the kitchen upstairs is a slightly different risk factor, as it indeed could have caused a fire - but again there were two fire escapes (the door and a window)... I'm assuming for his sister to live upstairs the OP would need to put a kitchen in - but again - perhaps not..
 

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