Turning Residential into Offices...Possible?
Discussion
Hi all, appreciated the advice and threads on here .
Anyone have any experience of buying a house and using it as a office for 10- 20 staff?
We have a lovely rural office, that when our lease expires will be converted into a house by the owner.
As it is a rural area, there are very very little office options and if we go too far we risk losing experienced staff and various other issues. Furthermore, due to the permitted development scheme , lots of decent office stock we have looked at is being turned into houses, I also think some offices have inflated service charges & rent to dissuade commercial clients, so they can convert to residential and then argue "there is no demand".
But...there are lots of large country houses/town houses that could work as an office , putting aside the nuts and bolts , is it straightforward to change permission from resi to commercial?
We have 15 staff staff members, are not open to public and do financial consulting (very quiet and discrete) and would want circa 4000 sqft of space
Obviously , most houses are out of the question straight away, as 15 cars + deliveries clogging up roads/drives and disturbances would make a change of use out the question. But we have seen some nice town properties that are next to shops/offices in a shopping/business district with large rooms and lovely space. Would there be a hope in hell of us changing use? We have also seen remote properties, away from anyone else, what about those?
Would the local planning officer be good port of call, or is it a non starter from the off?
I appreciate it would be a bloody ballache re arranging rooms/re-wiring, network cabling etc etc to convert, on the other hand, when we choose to sell it would be easier and possibly more profitable to sell a house than an office.
Thanks in advance!
Anyone have any experience of buying a house and using it as a office for 10- 20 staff?
We have a lovely rural office, that when our lease expires will be converted into a house by the owner.
As it is a rural area, there are very very little office options and if we go too far we risk losing experienced staff and various other issues. Furthermore, due to the permitted development scheme , lots of decent office stock we have looked at is being turned into houses, I also think some offices have inflated service charges & rent to dissuade commercial clients, so they can convert to residential and then argue "there is no demand".
But...there are lots of large country houses/town houses that could work as an office , putting aside the nuts and bolts , is it straightforward to change permission from resi to commercial?
We have 15 staff staff members, are not open to public and do financial consulting (very quiet and discrete) and would want circa 4000 sqft of space
Obviously , most houses are out of the question straight away, as 15 cars + deliveries clogging up roads/drives and disturbances would make a change of use out the question. But we have seen some nice town properties that are next to shops/offices in a shopping/business district with large rooms and lovely space. Would there be a hope in hell of us changing use? We have also seen remote properties, away from anyone else, what about those?
Would the local planning officer be good port of call, or is it a non starter from the off?
I appreciate it would be a bloody ballache re arranging rooms/re-wiring, network cabling etc etc to convert, on the other hand, when we choose to sell it would be easier and possibly more profitable to sell a house than an office.
Thanks in advance!
Change of use planning permission can be as simple or as difficult as the planners want it to be.
I would suggest finding a couple of properties advertised that you think are potentially suitable and then booking a pre-planning consultation meeting with the planners. Discuss it with them and see how welcoming they are of the idea.
As you say, parking and traffic will be the big issues - along with deliveries. Even an office of 15 people 'could' have frequent deliveries in large vans/small lorries which may not be ideal in some areas.
I would suggest finding a couple of properties advertised that you think are potentially suitable and then booking a pre-planning consultation meeting with the planners. Discuss it with them and see how welcoming they are of the idea.
As you say, parking and traffic will be the big issues - along with deliveries. Even an office of 15 people 'could' have frequent deliveries in large vans/small lorries which may not be ideal in some areas.
48k said:
At the risk of asking the really obvious question - why can't you buy the place you're currently in?
Love to but the landlord is turning it into his house......which is the vice versa of what we are considering!We have 2 years left of a 10 year lease, he has advised we can break early if we find anything, after seriously looking for over a year we have had minimal progress
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