Thinking about buying next door and converting

[TinyD]

Hope you can help as I am new to this.

There is a possibility that we could purchase the terraced house next door to us which would mean owning two middle houses in a terrace of 8. Our plan would be to use the extra space whilst my teenage sons are with us and then convert back to two homes and rent one out or sell it later to supplement our pensions.

It seems easy to think about just putting a door through downstairs and keeping the houses quite separate, but is it that simple? Would we have to pay two lots of council tax? water rates etc? Obviously we want to keep costs down as it will be a major stretch to us anyway.

Are we doing anything wrong putting a door through and using it as one?
If we could end up paying only one lot of council charges etc I am sure that would save money even though it would be re-rated. Theses are two small two bed homes, two up one down type. Or would we be best keeping the separate status as this is probably a 5 year type idea.

Any advice greatly appreciated. Many thanks.

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

The easy solution, would be putting a through door in, rather than knocking through and causing disruption to the structure and maybe the stairways.
Don't know the answer to your question as some council can be different to others.
I would suggest you call them and see what they say, I guess if you wished to call it one address, amendments would have to be made and the band rating of the property increased, as the value of the properety as one would go up.
Remember if one or both houses, have only one registered adult living there, you do get a 25% reduction.
So worth the call and getting the calculator out.