150 with planning

I would agree with djh but much depends on the plot location. Desirable locations (away from busy roads, good views and the like) seem to have maintained their value especially if there is a bit of land (more than an acre) but smaller town or city plots have fallen by as much as 40% from the top which would bring it down to Tony's £150k or less.

So just to be clear -

houses in the road where the plot is located average around £400k, so are you suggesting the plot should be worth around £200k, leaving me £200k to build a house.

Alternatively If I work back from my plans for a 300m2 house and say the 'all in costs' are £1000/m2, giving a total build cost of £300k - is the land valued at £150K. Giving me a total all up cost of land + build of £450k?

or is the land valued at half of £450k ??


In answer to other questions -

There are no expensive planning conditions.
CIL not in place yet.
May have to contribute to affordable housing.
Plot does not have PP but the seller knows that planning should be straightforward to get, so will make my offer subject to contract and getting PP.

With road frontage
Drop kirbs required (pavement 3 feet wide) and formation of driveway within the plot
Services in the road/pavement, say max 50 feet from house
Planning - how long was that piece of string?

Can anyone point me in the direction of a conditional contract as I'd like to read a good example before getting a solicitor involved.

"You building a mansion" -- No! - But I am building what my wife terms our 'forever house'. So no more 'buy, do up, move on', no more 'little projects' (or grand schemes) etc.

Also the existing houses in the road are all of very high build quality, a lot have Westmoreland green slate roofs, natural local stone facings, proper garages (nothing tatty looking here) and lots of detailing. In fact the locals tell me that the previous Planning application for the plot failed because the owners tried to build a bland square box of six flats that did not compliment the area in any way.

Oh and did I say its in an Area of Outstanding natural Beauty, a status that many local groups guard jealously !!

As someone with a plot in an AONB I can tell you that you will have an uphill struggle with planning. The stated reason for rejection of PP is very often not the real underlying reason when you dig down a bit. The planning history for my plot goes back to 2003 and I've still not got detailed PP for the house I want to build. I have a mountain of planning conditions, some of which are almost contradictory, and some of which seem to have been added simply to dissuade anyone from building.

Be prepared for a long haul with the planners if it's inside an AONB and has already had PP refused once. Colin's estimate of £10k for getting PP is probably on the low side if it takes you a long time to win approval. As an example, our plot had detailed PP (after four failed applications), but I wanted to make the approved house slightly smaller and simpler (essentially I wanted to remove a small wing at one end to improve thermal performance and better fit our needs). Usually making a house slightly smaller would be dealt with as an amendment to the existing approval by the planning officer, but because of the planning history I've needed a full new application that will go to committee (and will almost certainly be rejected first time around, based on the history so far).

Also worth bearing in mind that it's becoming increasingly difficult to talk to a planning officer, because of the local authority budget cuts. Many areas have removed the duty planner service and introduced a charge for consultation. Here it costs a fixed £90 to talk to a planner before you have an application in the pipeline. It actually makes more sense now to put in an application and then amend it in light of the initial discussions with the planner, or withdraw it (to avoid getting an adverse planning record) if it is clear that it's a non-starter. You can always re-submit a new plan then with no risk of the adverse planning history causing problems. The latter is my biggest headache, as the reasons for refusal of previous (completely different) applications are still being raised now, nearly ten years later.

Would the CIL be encouraged by the finance office as it is a method of raising revenue. If the planning office keeps denying or delaying permission then revenue is down.

No idea, but I know that if I was responsible for collecting money I would be chasing every department that can generate a revenue stream.

Having checked up on CIL in my local area, according to the LA web site there are plans to introduce it in the next two years.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: seascape</cite>Not sure how much a 'developer' works out cost m2, but unless it's a fairly standard build and you intend doing alot yourselves £1000m2 will be difficult to achieve I think.</blockquote>

I agree. There are figures bandied about in the self-build magazines and the like that suggest you can build for as low as £800/m². Maybe if you have the skills and time to do a lot of work yourself, or can scrounge free help from friends, you might be able to build for this sort of price, particularly if it's a fairly large house, where the economy of scale tends to bring the cost per m² down a bit.

In my case, no matter how I've tried to bring costs down I can't get below about £1350/m² for the finished house (not including land cost), and that's for a house that isn't to a particularly high spec, and doesn't have particularly expensive finishes (render/oak clad exterior, slate roof, engineered wood/tiled flooring throughout, mid range kitchen and bathrooms). That cost doesn't include the cost of services, which for me add another £20k++. When I add in the cost of the plot I get a total that is around £10k to 20k below the probable value of the completed house, so not a big financial saving really.

The really big benefit is in getting exactly the house you want, where you want it.

I think that £/m^2 is a poor way of comparing house values. Though I did notice that Aylesbury has the smallest price increase in ten years and Stratford on Avon is top of the non Sourthern list. What a change around in 30 years.

I would agree with everyone above who says get a cast iron option to purchase contract!!

If the seller will agree perhaps you could set an initial agreed price and then build into the contract some %age of any taxes levied against the plot (CIL etc.) and then a reduction in price by a stated %age for every 6 months of PP time after what you both agree would be a reasonable time for PP approval (e.g. the local average for PP) This way you get some compensation for the time, effort and expense if PP turns out to be a protracted affair. (Given the plot has a history of failed PP and all the other bad news listed in the posts above PP could turn out to be the work of a life time!)

If the seller approached you then she is obviously wants to sell so she may agree to carry some of the burden of a protracted PP exercise by way of staged price reduction as compensation - might be worth a try.

Pugliese (and others)

We have essentially done as suggest and worked back from an as built value and come to the conclusion that the plot is worth £4k as a big of tatty woodland in a nice area, or £120k as a building plot. We had considered offering more but discounted the initial offer based on the cost and timescale involved. The offer is subject to an option to purchase contract.

I do like the idea of some sort of further dicount based on planning history and any difficulties these may (will) throw up and hence affect the timescale.

Owlman - The plot is surrounded by houses so has little value as a woodland. It was a neighbour who described it a as tatty, so maybe even they see little value in it!