Value of derelict 5m x 2.5m garage within my land
Discussion
Hi everyone,
I moved to a semi-detached house six months back. The house is one of two on a short private lane that my neighbours and I jointly own. My neighbours own the first half, I own the second half. I have access rights to their entire half to get to my house and for turning. They have the right to use 80% of my half for turning.
There are two garages at the end - one is mine and the other is theirs. Both are pretty decrepit and I don’t believe my neighbours use theirs at all. Since I own the land directly in front of theirs and my garage is along the other side (it is fenced off on the other two sides), I don’t believe it has any commercial value.
What would be a fair price to offer to buy their garage/the land it’s on? It’s pretty much derelict, I don’t know whether it’s weather tight and I imagine the roof is full of asbestos (mine is)…
Thanks.
I moved to a semi-detached house six months back. The house is one of two on a short private lane that my neighbours and I jointly own. My neighbours own the first half, I own the second half. I have access rights to their entire half to get to my house and for turning. They have the right to use 80% of my half for turning.
There are two garages at the end - one is mine and the other is theirs. Both are pretty decrepit and I don’t believe my neighbours use theirs at all. Since I own the land directly in front of theirs and my garage is along the other side (it is fenced off on the other two sides), I don’t believe it has any commercial value.
What would be a fair price to offer to buy their garage/the land it’s on? It’s pretty much derelict, I don’t know whether it’s weather tight and I imagine the roof is full of asbestos (mine is)…
Thanks.
Less than £125,000 as that's the stamp duty threshold.
No EA or surveyor (or solicitor) is going to put any other figure on the value.
This only works if both you and the current owner can have a sensible conversation.
99% of the time that's not possible.
My guestimate would be £1,000 plus his legal fees.
No EA or surveyor (or solicitor) is going to put any other figure on the value.
This only works if both you and the current owner can have a sensible conversation.
99% of the time that's not possible.
My guestimate would be £1,000 plus his legal fees.
JQ said:
The value of the garage is irrelevant. It is the value of the land and the potential to create a development plot by merging the 2 garage plots (Marriage Value) that would need to be assessed. Nobody can advise from here what that would be worth. Perhaps speak to a local EA.
If it had its own access, I’d agree, but the only access is over my driveway, with 2.5m high fences along two sides and my 3m high garage alongside the third, so I imagine the land itself doesn’t have much scope for development.Is the Marriage Value relevant since I own the other garage, which is about 50% bigger and abuts my driveway, giving it standalone development potential that the other garage doesn’t have (not that I have any intention of developing it, short of building a new garage potentially a little further back from the front of my house)?
May talk to the agent that sold both houses and see if they can give an indication. Thanks.
OIC said:
Less than £125,000 as that's the stamp duty threshold.
No EA or surveyor (or solicitor) is going to put any other figure on the value.
This only works if both you and the current owner can have a sensible conversation.
99% of the time that's not possible.
My guestimate would be £1,000 plus his legal fees.
Hear what you’re saying. Would have thought more than £1,000, though the likelihood of me having to pay to remove asbestos does reduce the value…No EA or surveyor (or solicitor) is going to put any other figure on the value.
This only works if both you and the current owner can have a sensible conversation.
99% of the time that's not possible.
My guestimate would be £1,000 plus his legal fees.
Neighbour and I get on well. I’ve been pretty flexible with him and he seems to have a pretty common sense approach so far, so fingers crossed.
Alternative is swapping the space the garage is in with an equivalent amount of land of mine that borders his driveway, since that’d give him more space to park, and I pay legal costs.
The last freehold lock-up garage I knew about sold for about £15k, it was no use for much other than storing junk.
That was nearly 10 years ago now.
And south coast suburb not inside the M25.
It makes little difference if the garage is a wreck, you can put up a prefab garage for under £5k. And people sometimes pay a ton of cash for a parking space.
The add-on value to a house which doesn't have good parking otherwise could be a lot more.
OTOH, some houses sell for nearly as much as an identical one with a garage.
So deals might be done when the neighbour sells up.
The rights over your land for turning will be of some value too.
If there is likelihood of planning for housing then values could be higher.
I have looked at houses for sale in Devon and thought I'd pay £25k more if it had another off road parking space.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who is done with on-road parking and that's only going to be more so as EVs take over IMHO.
So I'd say it could be anywhere from £10k to £50k depending on who's keen and I'd only be mildly surprised if was outside those limits either way.
That was nearly 10 years ago now.
And south coast suburb not inside the M25.
It makes little difference if the garage is a wreck, you can put up a prefab garage for under £5k. And people sometimes pay a ton of cash for a parking space.
The add-on value to a house which doesn't have good parking otherwise could be a lot more.
OTOH, some houses sell for nearly as much as an identical one with a garage.
So deals might be done when the neighbour sells up.
The rights over your land for turning will be of some value too.
If there is likelihood of planning for housing then values could be higher.
I have looked at houses for sale in Devon and thought I'd pay £25k more if it had another off road parking space.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who is done with on-road parking and that's only going to be more so as EVs take over IMHO.
So I'd say it could be anywhere from £10k to £50k depending on who's keen and I'd only be mildly surprised if was outside those limits either way.
OutInTheShed said:
So I'd say it could be anywhere from £10k to £50k depending on who's keen and I'd only be mildly surprised if was outside those limits either way.
It's quite likley that only the neighbour has a right to pass over the OPs property to access the garage so it's of no use to anyone else. SonicHedgeHog said:
Two garages is enough space for a 1 bed bungalow. It s amazing how much house you can squeeze in with a good design. If I owned half of that I d want an awful lot more than £1000. You might get lucky though. Any pics?
Yes, together that s enough space and mine is open on two sides. A 5m x 2.5m one that is bordered by 2.5m-3m walls on three sides though, isn t, surely? I imagine they would never get planning for any new dwelling that has to be accessed through my land and would look directly onto to my land - at least without my express agreement. So, I d imagine it could only ever be a garage or parking space for the house next door.
Obviously, I understand that that has value, but both houses have large drives alongside the shared road, but both are currently walled off (I m planning to take down half of my wall, so I can park on my drive .
My garage is the one on the right in the aerial pic below and the one on the left in the pic from the street. My boundary runs in line with the white horizontal wall towards the top on the right of the aerial pic.
Mr Pointy said:
It depends on how much less his house is worth without a garage. Just because he doesn't use it doesn't stop it adding value to his property.
That is true. Don’t think the garage adds anything particularly, but these two houses are quite different to all the others in the immediate area plot/parking-wise. They have much more space to the front of them and much better parking scope than most similar ones in the immediate area (albeit the current arrangement involves us both parking on space that the other should be able to access to turn, in theory).
I’m planning to take my front garden dwarf wall down, which will give me two dedicated parking spaces. He could do the same if he wanted.
Mr Pointy said:
OutInTheShed said:
So I'd say it could be anywhere from £10k to £50k depending on who's keen and I'd only be mildly surprised if was outside those limits either way.
It's quite likley that only the neighbour has a right to pass over the OPs property to access the garage so it's of no use to anyone else. Their Land Registry entry refers to ‘to the Vendor and its successors in title a right of way with or without vehicles at all times’.
Byker28i said:
Does he use it? Whats your plans for it, a nice new double garage that would look better?
Don’t think he’s used it at all.I’d like to knock both garages down and rebuild. If I could have both and rebuild mine a bit bigger (it’s currently 5.80m x 3.30m internally, so a very large single, but not a double) and potentially a metre further away from my house, I could make more of my driveway a garden.
I’m one of the strange people who actually wants as much green as possible around the house, rather than tarmac, AstroTurf and grey windows everywhere, which seems to be the 2020s way.
Currently the first thing you see down our lane is two decrepit mismatched garages and an ugly concrete road. Making the garages smarter and more useful would lift the houses, I think.
RoVoFob said:
Hear what you re saying. Would have thought more than £1,000, though the likelihood of me having to pay to remove asbestos does reduce the value
Neighbour and I get on well. I ve been pretty flexible with him and he seems to have a pretty common sense approach so far, so fingers crossed.
Alternative is swapping the space the garage is in with an equivalent amount of land of mine that borders his driveway, since that d give him more space to park, and I pay legal costs.
I would consider this - seems a fair swap - especially if you offered to build the garage for him (£3K for a basic small Compton-style garage building?)Neighbour and I get on well. I ve been pretty flexible with him and he seems to have a pretty common sense approach so far, so fingers crossed.
Alternative is swapping the space the garage is in with an equivalent amount of land of mine that borders his driveway, since that d give him more space to park, and I pay legal costs.
SonicHedgeHog said:
Bags of potential. Looks like the kind of area I grew up. Perhaps just ask your neighbour if they re interested in selling. Then move forward based on what they say?
Yeah, I think so. It’s unusual to have this much space around the house in this area - especially for the price. And it’s even more odd to have a large - and easily accessible - garage too.Yeah, will speak to my neighbour when I next see him. Sure he’d be open to a discussion, even if it doesn’t come to an agreement. He suggested installing gates and other joint stuff previously, so seems to be open to changing things…
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