Have you built a Granny Annexe?

It’s a good way of increasing the value of your daughters house while making provision for your own retirement. It’s best to have a communicating door and a external entrance, so that friends and carers can visit without disturbing the family.

Father in Law has an annex on a grandsons house, several of the family live closeby, it works very well.

If it’s the technical side of the build you’re questioning, I’d get an architect round to give you half an hour ( free) advice. Building in a garden can have lots of regulations, depending on where the garden is. For example where will the foul drainage go?
Kit builds are often just that, leaving the client to sort out services and fittings.
Of course living close to a relative has other issues, will they ever want to move?

We are thinking about this at some point in the future. Some of them look beautiful and it would solve some problems.

I agree J52. It is important to use a properly qualified architect, not someone calling themselves an "architectural consultant" or"architectural designer". Check that they are registered with the Architects Registration Board.

arb.org.uk/

Thanks for messages, all advice warmly received. It is in the planning stage and we don’t want to miss anything.?

Do check all the legal requirements fully, legal/ beneficial ownership, council tax situation, inheritance etc. Sewage disposal, utilities, broadband- joint or independent? Also planning permission, can it be resold as a separate property....lots of pitfalls for the unwary.

We built an annexe on to our much loved home for my parents, my Dad died and my mother became unbearable, diagnosed as psychotic. In the end we bought her out and rented the annexe out as a holiday let. By the time she was diagnosed with dementia it was too late to put right, she had to go in to a home and we had to sell up her new house to pay for her care while we were left with a big mortgage.
Please be careful not to leave your loved ones with that sort of mess.

Unless there would also be plenty of cash available, I wouldn’t, in case care home fees were needed in future, because it wouldn’t be possible to sell just the annexe to pay for them.

I have heard of a few cases where an annexe worked well for a while, but dementia then made the arrangement untenable.

In case of care being needed later, there’s also the question of deprivation of assets - i.e. your money has been used to provide a valuable addition to an adult child’s home. The powers that be will not care that this was not the main purpose of the exercise at all.

Thirty Five years ago, my brother in law had one of these built for his recently widowed mother in law, who seemed unable to live by herself. Used the money from sale of her small flat to pay for this.
This lady, who seemed so very physical fragile lived for a further 33 years. Over that time, they several times had to move home, and on each occasion then had to spend a lot of extra money building an annexe for her.

By the time of their last move, when they were trying to downsize, they could not afford to do this again, so she had to live in with them. She was already suffering from dementia, and just could not understand why she could not 'go home'. Within less than six months of moving there, her daughter was at the point of having a total nervous breakdown with trying to look after her extremely distressed mother who was causing so many problems. She was finally found a place in a home, and stayed there for a further couple of years before she died.
It has cost them of hundreds of thousands of pounds over these years, and they now say that if they had any idea they would not have done it in the first place.

Thanks for all the replies and help. The family side of this project is already sorted and a solicitor will have our wishes put in writing in new wills and powers of attorney. Luckily none of our children or children in law are at all bothered about inheritance and we are not concerned about what we leave them. We would rather help them now if we can.
As I said in my message we wondered if anyone had used a really good building company as there are quite a few that have websites specifically for this kind of build. Recommendation is always helpful.

Find out if you would be able to get planning permission first.

Somebody nearby applied for planning. Their 'end of garden' dwelling would have overlooked the back of neighbouring houses, reducing their privacy - so permission was refused.

Westlea - we had a grandfather annexe built by Homelodge. They were absolutely brilliant. Highly recommended.

Hi! I'm waiting for an update. How's it going? Have you started the project?

AlexisPineda

Hi! I'm waiting for an update. How's it going? Have you started the project?

Three years ago?
One would have hoped they had "started" by now

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

lol, a glorified shed for your poor mum