council house and double extention

[tommyredmond]

i live i a council house and have just recieved a sum of money it is not enough to buy my home but i could afford a double extention on the rear of the house if i do this with planning permission and then deside i would like to buy my home will this added addition be included in the market value of my house as i have made this improvement my self with my money already

[bednobs]

are you even allowed to put an extension on a rented house????
also, what if you dont ever buy it, or cant buy it ... your sum of money will have gone on improving something that dosent belong to you, so someone else will reap the reward. if you cant afford to buy it now youve got some money how are you expecting to be able to buy it in the future? are you expecting larger sums of money to come your way?I dont know where you live, but surely a double extension's gonna cost you 20-30 000 pounds? Why not put that down as a deposit and get a mortgage for the rest to buy it, if you have a "right to buy"?

[tommyredmond]

my council home is worth over �285000 thats with my council discount took off as i live in oxford and my lump sum is just under �129000 i still could not afford to buy my home but with the remaining money from a �30000 extention i could afford a small property further a field to rent out of later sell to urn me money back to buy my house in the future that why i asked the question about the over all value of a double extention

[bednobs]

there are a lot of ifs and buts in that though, arent there? I personally still think it is foolish or even illegal or both to extend something that dosent belong to you, at the very worst the owner could ask you to yake down any extension you have put up on their land and property. I have to say also its probably going to take you a very long time to turn 100 000 pounds into 285 000 pounds, by which time your current council house could be worth 400 000 pounds or more, if you are buying somewhere else and xpcting it to go up in value, so will the one you are living in now. Also, if you buy a house elsewhere, why should the council still be expected to house you? surely council hpuses are for people who have nowhere else to live? i would have thought owining property would make you ineligable to live in a council house?

[themas]

You cannot build an extension without the agreement of the owner of the property. You would also need planning permission and building regulations consent. I think it extremely unlikely the Council would agree to you extending the property but - if you really want to go ahead - you must ask them before doing anything else. I fully agree with the previous answers - in my opinion it would be somewhat risky to spend money on this when you cannot have any guarantee that you will ever get it back.

[tommyredmond]

i was not foolish enough just to start building if you read what i had write you would see that i said if i got planning permission as several people in my area have had one story extenitions on the back of there council houses

[kwicky]

I have a relative who lives in a council house and like you cannot afford to buy it. He has built an extension after contacting the council. As the situation is unusual they were not able to say if his rent or council tax would be increased. They did consent to the extension, which they are unable to give a grant, but said if he left his council house within 10 years they would pay towards it pro rata. So keep all bills and inform them first to get the OK as your circumstances may change in the future.

[bednobs]

if your answer was aimed at me, i cdid read that you havent started it yet ... what i am saying in my answer is that it would be foolish to start it. I also dont know how council houses work, but surely they work on need? so, for example if you had a house elsewhere you wouldn't need a council house. If you are going to buy somewhere, surely the best thing to do is give up the house you've got and let someone who needs housing and dosent have a spare 130k hanging around to buy somewhere have it?

[bednobs]

if your answer was aimed at me, i cdid read that you havent started it yet ... what i am saying in my answer is that it would be foolish to start it. I also dont know how council houses work, but surely they work on need? so, for example if you had a house elsewhere you wouldn't need a council house. If you are going to buy somewhere, surely the best thing to do is give up the house you've got and let someone who needs housing and dosent have a spare 130k hanging around to buy somewhere have it?

[Pippa68]

My sister extended her council house before buying it. They managed to get permission from the council plus planning permission from the council.

It was bought at the price it would have been before the improvements were made.

[themas]

Bednobs

I think tommyredmond's comment was aimed at me. I had read his post. The point - and it is important - is that, as the house belongs to the council, just getting planning permission is not enough. It is quite possible that the planning dept. of the council would not appreciate that the house is council owned, & in any case it is not their job to enquire into who owns property and whether the owner has agreed the extension etc. Applicants for planning permission are supposed to notify the owner of the property that the application has been made but even this - if it was done - is not enough in this case, in my opinion. You need to pay a fee to put in a planning application and there would be no point spending this money if the council (in its capacity as owner of the property) was not going to agree to the extension.