Home and Business Property need some info.

ETRY

Hi im looking for some advice on buying a property? its currently a small newsagents with a two bed apartment over head, which needs a bit of work, Its on a residential street. Im thinking of purchasing and living upstairs with my wife and daughter and continue renting to the guy who runs the shop for one year i have spoke to him about this, then converting the shop into the rest of the building after the year is up.
As this is something i have never done before,can anyone offer me advice as to what i may be looking at when it comes to planning permission and Insurance i may need to get. Cheers

bigblackmug

I was thinking of something similar.
Rember rates are payable on commercial property no matter what. If your tenant doesn't pay then you do and you'd need to get very strong assurances from your local authority that they will permit conversion back to residental. Don't assume they'll allow it. They've got a budget based on the number of commercial properties in their area and converting commercial to residential undermines their notional budget even if those properties are lying idle.
They'll probably charge you 50% of rateable value if the commercial element is unoccupied.
Retail in small country towns is dead and it isn't a blip.
If you look to the likes of Germany their small towns have practically no shops anymore and everybody shops online and in the Aldi/Lidl type stores on the edge of town. If you buy this type of property you have little prospect of reverting to commercial after.

dwiseman

I wouldn't agree with bigblackmug at all, there is hope! A reduction of 50% in annual commercial rates is available to any retail unit that is vacant if the tenant can prove that they are actively attempting to rent out the space. If however as is your case you are looking at changing the use from commercial to residential that will be something to discuss with your local authority. The fact that you have said it is on a residential street is something that is in your favour. Loss of income to the local authority by loss of rates doesn't come into it when a commercial property is no longer being used commercially. Your first point of call is your local authority, call in and explain what you are proposing and take it from there. Good luck!

ETRY

Cheers guys thanks for the info.