Buckle up, get a cuppa, this is a long one.
There is always chat about planning permissions and either the tightening of rules, the softening of rules or indeed how to decipher the rules. One thing though, that there seems to be a lot of at the moment is one off building plots for sale. These can be in someone’s garden that they can divide off, or an unused garage or similar. My personal favourite are the rural disused farms. Have a look on Rightmove; certainly, as of writing there are a number available in the South East.
You may have watched Grand Designs and thought this dream is for you and with both, (newly purchased), steel toe-capped boots you are ready to take the plunge or alternatively you may lip sync to Kevin McCloud as you know he is going to say ‘so this project is over budget and over programme time’ and you think this is not the risk you wish to take.
However, even if you are more risk-adverse you may still harbour dreams of building your own home to your own specification. In fact research conducted in 2020 1 in 3 people would be interested in building their own home, with 9% of people saying they were likely to build their own home in the future. So I can bet some of you reading this would like to build your own. In the same survey by the National Custom and Self Build Association, they listed the barriers that people felt were there to build their own home. It is no surprise that financing the project was one such barrier, with planning permission a close second and knowledge in third place. Fourth place was finding a suitable plot and fifth was time.
So, what can be done about these barriers? If we take each in turn, the finance one is crucial and building your own house does take a certain amount of financial stability but perhaps not much more than buying a house. There are a number of lenders that now do development finance for self-build and in our experience especially if you have a main contractor like Hartwood on board from the beginning the risk for the bank is less and they will be more willing to lend. Take a look at buildstore.co.uk or even better check out moneysupermarket.com which has a lot of information on this area.
Planning permission can be a tough one if you do not know the system, however as mentioned there are a number of single plots with planning permission available it seems, so these are always worth a look. The style of housing may not be to your taste but if it has the size of home and the location you want then it is worth getting some advice from a planning consultant or an architect on whether you can change the plans. Better yet put in a call to the architect/ consultant who got the planning in the first place as they will know any things that were disallowed by the planners. You will pay more for a plot with planning but it takes the risk of the planning process away from you. f you still want to seek planning on a plot of land then make sure you have a good local planning consultant on board with a proven track record.
Knowledge is the third biggest barrier although judging by Grand designs it always appears that non-builders feel they can take on the challenge. This usually leads to a longer time frame, higher risk but admittedly it may cost less. What I would suggest is if you are interested in a self-build and you have found a plot of land but you do not know where to start then give someone like us a call. (Of course we should be top of your list but you may be reading this in North East Scotland, or even further away and we tend to cover South East of England, (a caveat to that is we are always happy to chat on the phone, all things building!)). In building homes we are used to looking at things that happen well before the build, like drainage, services, easements to name but a few. With a knowledgeable builder on board you still get to do the fun bits like design and interiors without worrying about the technical stuff like the planning conditions, the ground conditions, the engineers. Just saying this takes the strain away from you so you can get on with designing your home.
I have already hit on the finding a plot, there is more than ever on the market and you can also go on your local authorities list of people seeking self-build plots. This is a way the government is trying to get more self builds into the market to diversify the market and increase consumer choice. Plot search is also somewhere else you should look.
Lastly time. There is no getting away from it there is a certain amount of time and effort to building your own home, but nothing worth having comes easy. (I am sure I have read that on a poster). It will take time. During the project, even with a fantastic one stop builder like us, (that can sort a lot for you) you may be involved with any one of the following; the architect, the planning consultant, the kitchen company, the landscaper, the electrician, the flooring company because after all you will be wanting to make the decisions on your home. Here at Hartwood we will take as much or as little of this away from you as we do design our own homes to sell on to clients but I think if you have had the endurance to get to the end of this item and you are still interested in building your own home then I think you will want to have control of your project choices.
If you are interested in building your own home and you wish to talk to a friendly builder, just to get some insight into the process please do get in touch. We promise no hard sell and if you are in our area looking for help we can always put you in touch with our contacts regarding plots for sale, planning and similar.