We recently decided to make some changes to our 4 bedroom house. We were unable to sell it and the mortgage, although manageable wasn't really getting paid off. It was an inherited house and we re-mortgaged it to pay off siblings and the existing mortgage, we only wanted to do it up and then sell but the crash has come along and now we are stuck with it. We actually like living here so we thought of other ways of getting the mortgage down; we also have a baby on the way.
We thought about creating an area for a lodger, us to live upstairs and rent out downstairs. So we consulted an architect with our plans and upon his advice we added a shower room downstairs and installed a kitchen upstairs and we were hoping to build a loft conversion in the future.
We now have a problem, we have already completed the first two parts of our project, stupid of us but nonetheless, the building regs dept have now stated that we need planning permission, as the downstairs area is now considered to be an annex. The architect advised us of ways of getting around having to actually call downstairs a separate dwelling by: Us having access to the downstairs kitchen and the person living downstairs to have a bedroom upstairs, this now seems to have been wrong advice.
The reason we don't want to go down the PP route is because if it gets denied we will have to pull down our existing works, also when they inspect the property and see we have completed works already, would it then be an immediate denial? If PP goes ahead then we will have to get the property re-evaluated for council tax and the lodger then becomes a tenant and we have to declare rental income etc.
The PP office said it was classed as an annex due to the lodger having sole use of the facilities (kitchen and bathroom) they did state that if we were to share the kitchen then it would no longer be an annex. This might be the way forward for us but we would still like as much facilities upstairs as possible. At what point does the kitchen become a kitchen, can we just simply remove the upstairs oven?
Is there anything else we can do so that it isn't classed as an annex?
We were hoping that we could pay a lot of the mortgage off within 5 years and then convert back but if the lodger has to pay council tax or the lodger has to share the kitchen then we would have to lower the rent; this would substantially increase that time. I hope someone can help, we really don't want to go down the PP route but we also want privacy from our lodger. I suppose we could just withdraw the application completely and live as we are but we are afraid of what would happen if we got found out. Would we have to back pay council tax or worse, or would it just be a case of ripping out all of our work?
We thought about creating an area for a lodger, us to live upstairs and rent out downstairs. So we consulted an architect with our plans and upon his advice we added a shower room downstairs and installed a kitchen upstairs and we were hoping to build a loft conversion in the future.
We now have a problem, we have already completed the first two parts of our project, stupid of us but nonetheless, the building regs dept have now stated that we need planning permission, as the downstairs area is now considered to be an annex. The architect advised us of ways of getting around having to actually call downstairs a separate dwelling by: Us having access to the downstairs kitchen and the person living downstairs to have a bedroom upstairs, this now seems to have been wrong advice.
The reason we don't want to go down the PP route is because if it gets denied we will have to pull down our existing works, also when they inspect the property and see we have completed works already, would it then be an immediate denial? If PP goes ahead then we will have to get the property re-evaluated for council tax and the lodger then becomes a tenant and we have to declare rental income etc.
The PP office said it was classed as an annex due to the lodger having sole use of the facilities (kitchen and bathroom) they did state that if we were to share the kitchen then it would no longer be an annex. This might be the way forward for us but we would still like as much facilities upstairs as possible. At what point does the kitchen become a kitchen, can we just simply remove the upstairs oven?
Is there anything else we can do so that it isn't classed as an annex?
We were hoping that we could pay a lot of the mortgage off within 5 years and then convert back but if the lodger has to pay council tax or the lodger has to share the kitchen then we would have to lower the rent; this would substantially increase that time. I hope someone can help, we really don't want to go down the PP route but we also want privacy from our lodger. I suppose we could just withdraw the application completely and live as we are but we are afraid of what would happen if we got found out. Would we have to back pay council tax or worse, or would it just be a case of ripping out all of our work?
