Garage that is too small

[talksr]

The real fly in the ointment is the sub station to the right - if that was say ,your garden you could cut a hole in the wall, then roof over a small lean to - that way you could get the drivers door open fully and exit via the lean to or the main door ( I did this once on a house we owned)

I agree, that extra bit of space would make or break it for me. We may have got away with parking over their share of the drive a little as I am sure they very irregularly visit it, but no, we would never be able to do anything with that land or touch it which is a real shame. If the parking was not such a nightmare, we would go for the house as it is very nice inside and out, and the garage would have made a great storage area, but we really do need the parking for both of us. Never mind.

 

[talksr]

I have just had a measure up and the shortest width in the garage is 228 cm. Seems quite tight. We have a Ford Focus saloon and mini one. I think we might even struggle getting the mini in despite its name.

 

[catlad]

Yes but mini's aren't mini's anymore are they.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

What was wrong with the old Fords. My Ford ( Sit Up and Beg ) Popular was a great starter car.

I was a fan if Hillmans.

 

[Doggit]

Part of the problem, is the substation to the right, but it'll also depend on what part of the land is yours, so you need to look at the deeds, to determine the boundaries. It's possible that you're piece of land extends to the side of the garage (but unlikely), and that might allow you to extend it sideways.

If the concrete driveway at the front is yours, then there'll very likely be a right of way marked on the plans or in the deeds, for access to the substation, but in theory, as long as it still goes down the side of the new garage, then they may not quibble too much.

You'd need to strip the roof off of your side, support the roof joists, remove the side wall, then dig the foundations down, and rebuild the new wall. Then fit new joists alongside the old ones and bolt them together (or just completely replace them), then put on a new roof. So, do you want to go for it, or look elsewhere. It's possible that the neighbour may want to do the same as you, so may join in the project.

 

[talksr]

Part of the problem, is the substation to the right, but it'll also depend on what part of the land is yours, so you need to look at the deeds, to determine the boundaries. It's possible that you're piece of land extends to the side of the garage (but unlikely), and that might allow you to extend it sideways.

If the concrete driveway at the front is yours, then there'll very likely be a right of way marked on the plans or in the deeds, for access to the substation, but in theory, as long as it still goes down the side of the new garage, then they may not quibble too much.

You'd need to strip the roof off of your side, support the roof joists, remove the side wall, then dig the foundations down, and rebuild the new wall. Then fit new joists alongside the old ones and bolt them together (or just completely replace them), then put on a new roof. So, do you want to go for it, or look elsewhere. It's possible that the neighbour may want to do the same as you, so may join in the project.

Thanks for your post. yes that is true. I won't get my hands on the deeds unless I buy the place, but if I look the house up on the council planning website, this is what I get on the map:

I have written G over the garage so you can work out the angles etc. The road the pic I took of the garage is grey.

Do you think that taking down our garage would free up enough space to be able to open the doors on a standard car?
I am still not so sure.

Your suggestion of speaking with the neighbours to see if they would want to do similar is not a bad one but.....
1) They are very elderly and I believe one has alzheimer's, so I don't think this will be easily possible - they sound as though they have enough on their plate

2) By removing the garage, would we not lose value on the house? I would expect that all of that storage space, would be worth more than a parking space? It has light and power in there so could be a useful thing to have for people who don't have two cars and need them to get to work?

 

[Doggit]

You migh be able to download a copy of the deeds from the land registry website (if they're there) and it used to cost about £4.

AT the end of the day, you have to decide how desperate you are for the property, and how far you'd prepared to go to sort the problem. As the neighbors garage adjoins your land, are you prepared to give up maybe 3ft, and then demolish and rebuild both garages on the old boundary line. You can rebuild the neighbors garage the same size as it is, and build yours that bit wider. I suspect trying to get a couple of feet from the electricity grid is going to be a lot more difficult, but as they don't tend to come round very often, they may not notice if you do it surrepptitously. You're last option is to see if the neighbours want to sell their garage.

What's the postcode, and we can look on google maps. - as long as you've got no problems with that.

 

[talksr]

You migh be able to download a copy of the deeds from the land registry website (if they're there) and it used to cost about £4.

AT the end of the day, you have to decide how desperate you are for the property, and how far you'd prepared to go to sort the problem. As the neighbors garage adjoins your land, are you prepared to give up maybe 3ft, and then demolish and rebuild both garages on the old boundary line. You can rebuild the neighbors garage the same size as it is, and build yours that bit wider. I suspect trying to get a couple of feet from the electricity grid is going to be a lot more difficult, but as they don't tend to come round very often, they may not notice if you do it surrepptitously. You're last option is to see if the neighbours want to sell their garage.

What's the postcode, and we can look on google maps. - as long as you've got no problems with that.

Thanks, I looked it up on the Land Registry site but it says there are three options, not sure which I need:
Title register £3.00
Title plan £3.00
Flood Risk Indicator result

Also, you can't do a Google Street view on this street. For some reason, the street has never been done.
It is a really tricky decision. The property is up for £365k, we made an offer for £345k as this is the most we can stretch to. It looks as though the seller may be interested in this.

Our only other option is to get a new build in another village, which has good parking, everything modern so no risk of breakdowns or problems, but it is £360k, so we would be doing a 50% shared ownership share on it.

 

[Doggit]

You'd definitely want the title plans, but not the flood risk indicator. The question mark would be the register, but I suspect you could do without it. If the sellers interested in a drop of £20K, then I'd question why, so make sure your offer is subject to survey.

As to the new build, unless it's been done by a local builder, then forget it. The big boys overprice their stock by about 10%, and selling within 6 months would give you a loss. And there's been so many faults found with some new builds, that I'd never touch one with a barge pole. If you do a shared ownership, then as the market rises, you'd have to pay more for the other half of it; pus the fact that you'd be paying rent as well. I have a feeling that you're stretching yourself too much, and it could be a recipe for disaster.

 

[Nige F]

Thanks for your post. yes that is true. I won't get my hands on the deeds unless I buy the place, but if I look the house up on the council planning website, this is what I get on the map:

I have written G over the garage so you can work out the angles etc. The road the pic I took of the garage is grey.

Do you think that taking down our garage would free up enough space to be able to open the doors on a standard car?
I am still not so sure.

Your suggestion of speaking with the neighbours to see if they would want to do similar is not a bad one but.....
1) They are very elderly and I believe one has alzheimer's, so I don't think this will be easily possible - they sound as though they have enough on their plate
?

Taking down the garage is pointless ( now I see the plans ) The real rub is that when the houses were built someone just allocated the garages @ random - IF you had the other garage - Next to your garden, you could take the side and back out if you wanted ! I personally would speak to the neighbours, one partner may agree to a swap. Then there is just the fees to change the deeds etc. OR maybe the gap from the back of your garage to the boundary is enough to allow a car through the back wall ( with another garage door fitted ) out and open a door ? As to the Shared Ownership - it helped us out in the 80's- but that was on a £30k house Whatever you decide, good luck and keep us posted here

 

[talksr]

Thanks both for your helpful comments. We are going to see the new build on Tueday - we are allowed to take a look inside etc. We have had a look outside and it looks nice, but not anywhere near the size of the older house.

The seller of the older house is happy to go down on the asking price by 20k as they want to move in with their partner together. They found a new build a week after we made our offer. They rejected it, but then came back asking if we wanted to offer any more, we said we couldn't afford it and after quite a few days, they came back and said they would be happy to take the offer. We met the seller and their circumstances do seem honest.

Not a bad idea about switching garages but that would have to be a potential option for the future as the current neighbours are very old and one of them is really not all that well - so the seller tells us.

Shared Ownership, yes you are very right about the rent. The new build we are looking at is £360k for a three bed from a relatively new developer called Crest Nicholson - there are no horror story reviews on them YET. The max we can purchase initially is 50% which is so silly as I have a really large deposit I have saved. We could then, within the next year or so, staircase fairly quickly and purchase more. There is no cap so we could go up to 100% but would have to look at which mortgage to go with as if we are planning on switching early, we could incur fees.