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Has anyone extended their house?

We were looking at doing this in the next 4 or 5 years but my fil has just said he's happy to be a guarantor for us to get money to do it sooner.

Where do we start?

I'm thinking rough quotes from builders, check we can get the funds, proper plans drawn up, planning permission, finance sorted, start the work.

Obviously I know it won't all be as simple as that but is that the right order to do things?

Also, a couple of people told me we should be able to borrow more on our mortgage based on future value when work completed but someone else said you can't do this and we would just need to get a home improvement loan then when the work is finished re mortgage the house and pay off the loan.

Any tips welcome :-)

Thanks!

Replies

  • We first checked to see if they was any precedent for that sort of extension in the local area. But we did it in the order that you mentioned above. We got the money on a mortgage. The bank agreed that they could see what value it would add to the house. (We asked for £40k and it was going to put a value of £80k on the house - at the time, now it is worthless! But that didn't matter at the time as we never anticipated moving again!)

    Plus however logn the builder says it will take add 50% time on - that was the best tip we got and it was true!

  • Thanks QI,  our next door neighbours extended last year so I'm hoping there won't be a problem with us getting planning permission although we do have houses on our side,  they don't

  • We extended our house by doing a double storey side and rear extension and a loft conversion at the same time. You can always pop along to your local planning office and have an informal chat with them. I know this is what my H did. We submitted our plans, once they were passed we did the work. H did most of it, bringing in certain trades.

  • I would get planning first, as if you can't get that there is no point getting finances etc in place.  Planning usually last 2 years and once it's given you can re-apply easily to have it extended.  

    Word of mouth recommendations are good, ask local people who they have used.  

    A full detailed quote is good, ask them to break down all the parts, and see what you can do yourself - the headings our builder used were - preliminaries, demolition, excavation/groundworks, concrete works, brickwork/blockwork, roofing, woodwork, plumbing, electrical, finishes, decoration, drainage, external work.  

    You will need building regs too which can be a pain, but without makes it very difficult to sell.

  • Thanks everyone,  Cleo - don't want to pay the money for plans for planning permission though if we can't actually get the funds to do it.  Will need to get money agreed in principle.  Got a builder coming tomorrow to have a look. Am very excited that I might finally get a play room and utility:-)

  • We're in the same sort of boat as you Ally.  First  thing(and only thing we've done so far!) was to get Estate Agents round to value our house as it is now, and then what they predict it would be worth once the extenion is done.  We don't want to end up spending more than it's worth, as it's not our forever house, and not something we want to lose money on.  Next step for us is builders to give us a quote on the costs so we can work out if it's worth doing, or better to just move to a bigger house, (especially as the government's help to buy rolls out to existing homes from January so it might still financially better for us and give us a much bigger house for less cost to do that than to build).  After builder, it would be architect to draw up plans, submit plans, then commission builder I guess!

  • We were buying our house around the same time we were putting in planning permission for it. We were a bit naughty and went to view other houses in the area who had extended. We had no intention of buying them. However it allowed us to see things we wanted and didn't want.

  • Hope you come to a decision soon Catarina. I think if we manage to extend we'll stay here for a long time. We'll end up with a 4 bed,  2 reception rooms and utility for not a massive mortgage.  We wouldn't be able to get a 4 bed house for what ours will cost,  let alone with 2 reception rooms so just hoping it all goes to plan

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