We own one property which used to be a house with an adjacent cafe/shop, till the previous owner decided to make it a holiday cottage. We bought the whole thing with my parents and they lived in the 'house' with us in the cottage. Now we've lost them both we wish to move 'next door' and rent out the cottage. The properties are linked internally by a doorway through an old external stone wall (3' thick). It's all one property for Council Tax purposes.
Planning Officer has no problem with us renting out the cottage. Building Control Officer has lots of problems - to his mind it is a new use and needs us to move walls and widen corridors etc for wheelchair access. He also requires us to build up the connecting doorway completely to form two separate houses, with all the new thermal calculations that requires . We particularly don't understand the logic of this latter requirement - don't flats just have fire doors, for example? Has anyone experience of this sort of stuff?
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local councillors in the main part... who, I feel might view it more favourably]
Yes - great input! I'm just amazed at all the bureaucracy you've experienced though, Border Tart. What if you had approached the planners without stating your intention to let the property, but simply to create two separate dwellings? Obviously this would have entailed your being prepared to close up the connecting door in a proper manner, but would they have imposed all these other conditions, one wonders?
