Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
House refurbishment project
Hello dear neighbors!
Having rented a place in the Harringay Ladder we are now in a process of buying a 3 bed house on the other side of the Turnpike Lane station. The house is old and in need of a large refurbishment.
Unfortunately, it is in a poorer state than we originally assumed. I feel a little overwhelmed by the project and was wondering if anyone in the area has done or is currently doing a similar task. We were going to get separate contractors to do different jobs and project manage ourselves (my other half is a teacher so most work would be done during school holidays), however, I am now wondering if that would be wise. Does anyone has advice on this? If we were to go with a building contractor to oversee all or most of the job, recommendations would be most appreciated!
The renovation would involve re-roofing the extension, knocking down chimney breasts in the 1st floor and installing chimney support in the loft (current owner removed fireplaces downstairs without any support which resulted in sagging ceilings!), fitting new kitchen, bathroom, boiler, changing gas pipes, rewiring and obviously redecorating throughout. We are also looking into a possibility of creating a kitchen/dinner as the current kitchen is funnily shaped while the dinning room is dark but I am yet to find out how much it would cost as I don't think we can get away without installing a steel beam which sounds very expensive.. - is it?).
So. A mammoth job!
It would be amazing to find someone in the area who has experience in undertaking a similar project and could advise us with recommendations and tips.
Many thanks!
M.
Tags for Forum Posts: builder, house reburbishment
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Milda Rami on
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Once again I'd like to thank everyone that replied! This is very useful.
We have contacted the building contractor suggested by ant and also arranged a visit/meeting with a few builders from mybuilder.com Also, we have met the next door neighbors today who were incredibly nice and provided us with even more contacts!
So it will come down to what sort of quotes we'll receive.
Since not all builders mentioned here were praised, would it be possible to find out the names of builders that were a disappointment (especially if it came down to courts, etc)?
I am yet to figure out how this forum works but please feel free to message me with that kind of feedback! Do I have to connect with people to send/receive messages here?
Finally, the neighbors mentioned that many houses in the road (most likely ours included!) have been extended illegally. It must have happened in the 60s. Our solicitor seems a bit useless and hasn't picked up anything yet! Does anyone have experience with this? Especially since we haven't exchanged contracts yet.. Would that provide enough rationale to lower our offer? Like I said, the house is in a much poorer state than we've anticipated and the less money we spend on purchase, the more can go to the refurbishment. It would be great to hear from people who had experience with this.
Again - many thanks!
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Permalink Reply by Gordon Curtis on
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I wouldn't take my word for it, but my understanding is that once a structure has stood for 4 years without investigation by the council, it becomes a legal development. (You can confirm this in the Town and Country planning act of 1991?? I think). So anything built in the 60s will almost certainly be classed as a legal structure now.
You can contact the Council to see if they have any records re: planning/building regs on the house, which could also help?
If you are concerned about the actual quality of the structure itself, you should be able to arrange some form of indemnity-insurance for a one off payment that would last for the period of your mortgage, to protect you if it falls down/causes damage to a neighbours property.
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I did some reading about this and it turns out one thing we mustn't do is contact the council.
The fact that extension has no planning permission is not an issue as it has been there for ages so no council will bother to knock it down.
Bigger issue is building regulations since any work without planning permission is very unlikely to be signed off by building inspectors. On the one hand, that shouldn’t be a problem since even if the extension was approved by the 60s building regs, it would most likely not meet the current ones, so its just an old signature, right? On the other hand, however, we are planning to knock down some walls - including the wall separating extension from the main house which we will have to have approved by the council inspectors. What baffles me now is - can they do this considering the original extension has never been approved? Probably not, unless we are prepared to knock it down and build afresh (not an option). I guess we could still go on and do the job but then we will undoubtedly run into difficulties when selling a house (it seems some people just panic and run upon hearing about 'not signed of by the building inspectors', not sure i blame them though).
Our solicitor is still working on this but it is likely she would suggest getting building regulations indemnity insurance. But this only protects us if the council decides to knock the extension down, if I understand correctly. Would it provide any help if building regulators refuse to sign off structural work on the house which would eventually deflate the house price? I'm not sure but I don’t think so.
Whatever happens we mustn't contact the council because upon doing this we will no longer be able to apply for indemnity insurance as the council will have a 'notice' about our house.
I would really love hearing from anybody with similar experience.
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Permalink Reply by ant on
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Milda I'm wondering if this is really as bad as you think. I'm far from an expert but as i understand because the extension is over 4 years old you can just apply for a Lawful Development Certificate now, but really you'd only need to do that if you want to try to avoid any problems when you come to sell the house. If you want to knock down the wall that separates the extension from the house I'd guess that building control inspector may still be able to tell you what needs to be done and sign off the work even though the extension didn't originally have planning permission. To be more sure I think you should just phone and ask them, you don't have to tell them your name or the address if you're worried about that insurance thing, i've done that several times and they've always been quite helpful explaining the rules and options.
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Hello again!
Just a quick question: does anyone have a good example of a building works contract?
We have found a builder who seems really good (according to previous clients) and we are due to sign a contract tonight but I'm not 100% sure about the contract we've been offered. Any examples and tips would be most appreciated.
It might be easier to send directly to my email address: gegiula [at] gmail.com
Thank you!!
(p.s. it took us incredible FOUR month between the offer and completion even though the property stood empty throughout!)
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