Going to Build my own house!

mondeo

Hi there,

I have had trouble for years trying to get a mortgage so feck the banks as they are not interested in giving me a mortgage. I'm 31 years old and have no hope in owning my own home unless I build it myself!

I know how to build, I've assisted my father building foundations and walls for years. I'm sure as hell I can build a small house on a plot of land somewhere. Foundations and walls, insulation, doors, windows and alot of other bits n pieces are not a problem for me. The only real things I will need to get help with are the electrics, plumbing and possibly parts of the roof.

I'm aiming to build a small 2 bedroom bungalow somwhere in kildare, so I have some questions to ask anyone who knows about this.

Can anyone give me any idea how much land I would need to build a small bungalow? I have to buy the land obviously and make sure it will have no problem getting planning permission on it.

What legal requirements are there in me building my own home? Is it as straight forward as buying the land, getting planning permission, building it and getting a certificate of some sorts saying the building is structuraly sound etc?


Cheers really looking for advice:)

bbam

There is a minimum site size to ensure you have space for services like sewredge. 0.75acres I think.

Council contribution is steep in many counties. From what I remember it's could be near €20k in Kildare. Also to get permission in most counties you'll need to prove you have a reason to build in the area. This is getting tougher recently they would rather you bought an empty house in an existing estate rather than build another. You'll need strong family connections in the locality or be farming the land.

The structure will need to be certified at various stages by a suitably qualified engineer. Maybe 5 inspections.

Electrics need to be certified by a registered sparks. They won't certify some one else's work so it means a sharks must do all the wiring. Esb won't connect without the cert.

Big savings to be made if you can pull it off. Good luck.

Ronin247

Size of site will depend on sewerage. If there is a "mains" sewerage ie no need for a septic tank and percolation then you don't need 0.75 acre.
There are companies who will do testing, inspection and certification of the electrics if they are wired by someone else but it costs about 250-300 IIRC. At the moment you could probably buy a 2 bed small bungalow for sweet FA as they cannot give them away..... can be a lot cheaoer than building yourself, as I have seen properties sold that would not cover the material and site costs.

Best of luck with it

mondeo

Ronin247 wrote: »

Size of site will depend on sewerage. If there is a "mains" sewerage ie no need for a septic tank and percolation then you don't need 0.75 acre.
There are companies who will do testing, inspection and certification of the electrics if they are wired by someone else but it costs about 250-300 IIRC. At the moment you could probably buy a 2 bed small bungalow for sweet FA as they cannot give them away..... can be a lot cheaoer than building yourself, as I have seen properties sold that would not cover the material and site costs.

Best of luck with it

Im going to build my house bit by bit over a period of time. I don't have the full whack of cash to buy all the materials at once. I'll be quite literally doing this over a period of two years. If it were the case a small ready built bungalow were to be cheaper I still don't have 100k to hand over to the seller. At least I can work away here and there and when money is available to eventually get it complete.

Dante79

I think you need to come up with a detailed costing on your build. First come up with a design you want. Sketch it out and make sure rooms are correct size, mark it out with chalk on the ground to get a feel for space. Bring it to engineer/Architect to get plans drawn up for planning, they should also be able to give a detailed costing or if you know anyone in the building trade they should be able to provide you with accurate prices on material and labour. My friend is a builder and did it for me, it was very handy to compare his industry prices to quotes i was getting.
Once you have an estimate of how much its going to cost including all fees legal,planning, esb etc you should have 50-70% of the cost now...otherwise i would say to look at buying a house. If you dont have enough to get the house built to a liveable condition ie one bedroom, kitchen/sitting room , bathroom, i would seriously think about waitng until you can buy. The danger is the build will drag on for years, all your time and money will be going into it,. Are you prepared to commit to this for years? at the cost of your social life, holidays , savings ,time?

dathi

and from march next year the new building control act comes into force this means any house started after march MUST use a building contractor to build it or it will automatically be in breach of planning

flintash

How about doing upgrades, like extensions, external insulation, building garage and likes, the things that dont even need planning permission now? will this be affected by new regulations? CAn these regulation be found somewhere on the internet in plain english if possible?

recipio

dathi wrote: »

and from march next year the new building control act comes into force this means any house started after march MUST use a building contractor to build it or it will automatically be in breach of planning

What I hope this doesn't mean we can no longer use direct labour to build a house. ?

red sean

dathi wrote: »

and from march next year the new building control act comes into force this means any house started after march MUST use a building contractor to build it or it will automatically be in breach of planning

Otherwise known as a tax trap!

Andrew_Doran

flintash wrote: »

How about doing upgrades, like extensions, external insulation, building garage and likes, the things that dont even need planning permission now? will this be affected by new regulations? CAn these regulation be found somewhere on the internet in plain english if possible?

If the project takes more than 30 days, even if you somehow did all the work yourself, then the health and safety legislation kicks in.

For works subject to planning you need various certifications which are a different ball game, see here in this thread.

Regarding the building regs enforcement, many if not most were pushing for us to adopt the system used in England&Wales, where a grumpy man with a clipboard from the council pops around from time to time and can and does make you pull the lot down if it's not done exactly right. Predictably, those asking for the English&Welsh type system were ignored.

gutteruu

Council contributions will be the big one. Solicitors and engineers fee's will be a few grand taking the new regs into account. If you don't have council connection to sewage, these fancy biotanks will set you back an awful lot. ESB connections, certs for gas cooker, electrics etc. It all adds up.

To be honest, if you could find a derelict cottage/bungalow or something in bad need of repair you will be saving a small fortune and headaches.

kilclon

Contributions will be between 10 and 12k depending on location in Kildare and size of the house http://kildare.ie/countycouncil/planning/DevelopmentContributions/. More for a larger house obviously.
You won't get pp if your not from the area.
You probably won't get your commencement notice in now until after the March deadline next year. This means you will have to appoint an architect/engineer/building surveyor to oversee the build / sign it off. You also have to appoint a builder. You will find it hard to find one of these professionals to sign off on a self build particularly if you are doing all of the work (not saying you haven't the knowledge or experience to build but I don't think they will take the risk).
Reaching part L requirements is quite difficult on a new build and not cheap.

Houses are being sold below build costs in many parts of the country now.

I think, as mentioned above, you would be better off taking on a refurb project which will eliminate some of the above concerns.

Philip82

If you do go for buying a site then buy it pending planning approval. This means the sale can only be agreed if planning permission is granted. It would be self destroying to buy a plot and then find out you cant build on it.