Plans afoot to look at granny flat exemptions.

Watch the price of garden rooms mysteriously increase if this plan is implemented.

My main worry about this allowance is the amount of people who will put them in purely to rent out in order to try and make a tidy profit, market could be flooded with people renting out sub standard properties for extortionate prices.

There is no enforcement of planning ompliance as it is. I am ware of one case where planning for garage conerrsion was granted. Permission explicitly stated it may not be let and it was immediately let out. It was built for letting and never for family use.

Talk of this shows how far behind the curve the government are in having a viable plan to tackle housing. Its a knee jerk reaction and most of these solutions cause more problems.

a flooded market will drive down prices

House prices will increase too. Imagine trying to bid for a little family home now against the investor who knows they can pack 6 desperate tenants into the house and now squeeze in an additional 2 in a cabin out back.

The idea is fine if you only consider the scenario of people maybe letting their kids live in a modular unit in the garden. But medium to long term it is a disaster.

And with government record, any pressure relieved would just be taken as an excuse to sit back until it is soaked up and we are back to where we started, with the additional headache of tens of thousands living in gardens!

A section 5 would would satisfy both exemption and tracking

It'll be a wild west Irish shanty town debacle with people who don't give too craps about society benefitting.

There will be no extra services provided to support this: no extra water, power, sewage, broadband, emergency, waste collection, roads, transport, parking, policing, health care, education …

Other countries have been building cities for millenia, we are still in plasterboard shed mode.

Where does it say it's for existing occupants only ?

It'll alleviate a problem definitely for people stuck in the box room. They can now move to the garden. 😁

And the person next door will have 6 lads subletting his garden room partying all night. 😱

In an ideal world that will be the case

Reality is that loads of people will see this as easy money, throw a vaguely insulated shed up and rent it out (and pretend it's rent-a-room income too).

There's already lots of converted concrete sheds being rented out illegally as it is.

This really feels like the government have come up with this idea knowing well it's completely "cowboy". It is more than likely going to benefit more people than it will hinder. But I'd echo what has been said above. If and when things kick off on this the p1ss will be taken to an epic degree.

I'd also say the romantic idea of granny "downsizing" is really one that isn't in our culture. Very few OAPs I know have an iota of want regarding moving from their homes.

REad this irish page on them and all their benefits, which you hadn't considered, before slating them...

The unattributed quote from the civil servant is odd, suggesting that the kids will move into the garden, then the parents will move off site.

How's that going to work? Either the whole site with two dwellings will be sold to an investor who'll rent them out, then the family will buy two new properties, or the folio will be split, with the kids moving into the main house and the garden house sold as a separate dwelling.

Kind of implies that the garden house will have the same value as an ordinary dwelling, in which case this is simply a money tree for people with large gardens.

I don't expect this to have any measurable downward effect on housing costs, but will make life better for families who happen to have a large garden right now (and forget about ever buying a house with a large garden, because those will be priced for development).

How are housing costs in those countries that have implemented a similar policy? I hear there are loads of cheap gaffs in California.