Granny annexe

Don't have experience no - but are you aware that if it's sold/bought at a discount the difference between market value and the discounted value might be deemed 'a gift'? Therefore potentially taxable - (but exempt if they live for another 7 years I think - worth checking properly) . Also would anyone know if it's deemed a 'gift with reservation' because parents continue to live on the property?

As Birthto110 please take legal advice if you haven't already. Is daughter married? If so the consequences of divorce should be taken into account.
Omar are a major manufacturer and have a wealth of information on their website
www.omar.co.uk/buying-guide/buying-for-your-own-land/
Their buildings conform to all necessary standards and I've known many folk that have loved living in them.
They are very easily erected once on site and maintenance is low. How exciting - good luck.

Don't do it. Over my years on GN I have read to many horror stories of parents doing something like this only to end up as unpaid permanent babysitters. Children's marriage break ups which have left the parents homeless.

Also have you got planning permission to build in the garden ? I doubt very much you will get it . Also will there be a separate access and drive for you. Have you discussed this with your neighbours? I doubt very much they will let the build go ahead.

If your daughter can't afford a home of her own then she needs to save more.

And yes I expect to get rude replies but there are things you haven't taken into consideration. Planning permission can take months to go through. My daughter and son in law had to have planning permission to change the loft room into a bedroom and have every door in the house changed to fire proof . There was no exterior build it was all internal.

Each to their own but for me personally it’s a big no no
I know for some it seems to work wonderfully but I just think it’s unfair on the young people to (as they get older) have a ‘care home’ in the garden
I m sure for some families its a wonderfully practical experience and I envy them but for me personally I think it has so many possibly red flags both practically, legally and lovingly
I know someone who is very, very successfully co living with family 😀 so it can be done
I wish you well though

We didn't do this exactly but moved to daughters flat and they had our house then the relationship broke up and we all live back here.
I found it difficult seeing what they did to our house. Even silly things like replacing the shower curtain with a plastic screen.
On the whole the DGC have flourished but you have to be very adaptable and resilient.
And yes take legal advice.
And don't help you'r children too much it can backfire.

Potentially if the marriage fails, you could be homeless, it would be no from me. Stay independant. Buy a smaller place and get sorted, then see what you can give them without comoromising your living standards. Once a duty you become a burden.

Compromising, those gremlins.

As your house won't be yours anymore, and heaven help you if you are suddenly estranged as so many GNs seem to be, why not sell up and downsize and help them out with some money to buy what they need.
Also ďivorce is always a possibility however much it may not seem likely.
As said above planning permission could take forever.

You may of course be extremely wealthy with acres of land, no neighbours and can have a lovely designer home built with separate access.

But maybe not and your "home" a glorified shed. Take legal advice.

Have you read a thread on here very recently from a gran who moved into a granny flat with her son and ended up owning nothing and being unhappy but tied into an abusive relationship with all her money and assets gone
She never thought it could happen

I wonder how she is did the thread finish ?

All the 'what iffs' that others have offered up are exactly why you need legal advice before you proceed any further with your plans.
The proposal might be the perfect solution for you all but life has a habit of throwing all manner of obstacles at us.
Do talk to a solicitor.

Apart from all the things already mentioned, you will need to factor in the services to the building. Assuming you get PP laying new services to a building is extremely costly, the garden will need to be dug up to lay pipes for clean water and sewage pipes. There are strict rules applying to this work and often can only be undertaken by the water providers. They deem a septic tank is needed.
To bring electricity to the building is easier, but once again costly. It might help to enquire at your local planning office about the building regulations for such a project.

They may deem*

Unless you are in a Conservation area it’s doubtful you will need planning permission as long as all the Utilities are connected to and paid for by the main dwelling, the building is occupied by family members only and that the properties cannot be sold separately. Building regulations will have to be applied.
We looked into this very thoroughly during Covid, I will look at MrOops iPad later and find the Company name, they deal with everything, the slab, connecting utilities and total build a 2 bed, 2 bath home back in 2020 was £150,000, they look beautiful but we didn’t go as far as going to see one as our daughter didn’t want to live at the bottom of our garden ( it’s a large garden so plenty of room). The one we looked at was 60’x40’. Approx.
However, divorce could really leave you homeless, as your annexe will be tied to your daughters house and unable to be detached and sold as a separate dwelling.
The company we looked into will also do check to make sure your particular council allows an annexe on your property.

We considered pooling assets for my mother-in-law but I'm so glad we didn't.
I think we would both have grown to resent it and what if we had wanted to take a job elsewhere?

I know our idea was different but unless you have two separate dwellings with separate ownership I think there are lots of problems that can develop.

Take advice from a solicitor. Take it alone (with your husband) with your own interests in mind. Don't go with your daughter who should be taking separate advice.

Planning is a separate issue.

For me this would be a NO!!
Selling my house at a discount to an AC price so they can move in and we end up in a Granny annex at the bottom bottom the garden - I don't think so! Have you thought this through? When we are no longer here our AC will benefit from our assets - but not before! Please be careful.

Pennyluck07 Where do you live, I am wondering whether you live in the UK or in another country.

I say this because anyone in the UK would know that you would need planning permission to build another property in the garden of another house, and, unless the granny annexe has its own independent access (not through the drive of the existing property) planning permission may well be refused.

I would support all the other problems that people have mentioned. You need to take very careful legal advice because arrangements like this are fraught with danger and have a high failure rate, sometimes with grandparents being evicted from their home and left homeless. Their are significant tax implicatins as well.

If you can divide the plot of your home into 2 seperate plots and the second plot has independent access to the road. You could register the land of the planned Granny home as being an entirely sperate and independent plot of land and build on it. Then, if there is a disaster at the house you used to live in and it has to be sold, you will be unaffected and can continue to live in your granny home.

As for builders, unless you live near someone on GN I doubt anyone can recommend a builder. if you live near me I can recommend a very good builder, but if you live in Yorkshire or Cornwall or Kent or anywhere else in the UK or further afield, I cannot make any recommendation.

I agree with all the other posters. You should tread with great caution, both financially and emotionally. Life has a habit of changing on a sixpence even though it might seem utterly implausible at the moment.

God forbid but death, divorce, redundancy or illness could suddenly strike your daughter. The world is a much more fragile place than we realise. What if she's offered a wonderful job opportunity and wants to relocate?

If she is married and anything happened to her, all assets would go to her husband. Where does that leave you?

If she isn't married, what happens when she does? Will her new husband happily embrace the arrangement? If not, this could cause untold bitterness and your daughter will most likely side with him.

What happens when you or your DH, or both, become a burden instead of good company and a help?

Please seek independent legal advice for the financial and practical side and then think very long and hard about the points that I and other posters have raised.

My parents fell into a an awful trap doing something similar with my brother and his wife. It seemed like the perfect solution for everyone, a golden opportunity and sensible forward planning for all concerned. It was a disaster and they became effectively homeless and emotionally battered.

The problems are potentially endless, just don't do it. Downsizing and passing on of some assets makes much more sense

In my experience I would say, think everything through, even the worst case scenarios and what would happen to you and your husband in those circumstances. My youngest daughter and her then boyfriend who is now her husband lived with me in my house for 10 years. In that time they married and had their 2 girls and saved up a deposit for a house. We got on well so when they moved 4 years ago, I moved with them, thinking things would carry on as they had for the past 10 years. This has proved not to be the case. I have my own bedroom and sitting room but I am frequently told it is THEIR house and it is like walking on eggshells a lot of the time with ever-increasing do's and don'ts. I am a glass half full person so try to look on the bright side and not let things get me down but I feel more and more that I am here under sufferance. However, I am very handy for last-minute babysitting and school holiday care for free. Some posters have mentioned the financial implications of your plan. When we moved I sold my house and gave my 4 children the money they would have inherited had I died. When I duly altered some details on my Will, the solicitor told me that having given the vast majority of my money away it could look as if I was trying to dodge care home fees should I need one. If I could turn the clock back I would have done things differently. Think very carefully.

What are the reasons behind this?
Are you likely to be in need of care in the near future?
Is your home too big to keep/maintain?
Will your daughter be able to keep up the mortgage/maintenance?
Have you applied for planning permission?
There are so many questions.

I knew a lady who was persuaded to sell her home near London and pool her resources with her son and family to buy an old pub up here where she could have a granny annexe.

It was in a hamlet with no public transport, no shops, nothing at all. She was very lonely because they just left her to it and never visited. She told me the only person she saw all week was the mini bus driver who picked her up once a week to drop her at a day care centre. She wished she had never moved in.

That is so sad Primrose53 and I expect not that unusual. I know of 2 similar examples.

There are so many reasons why this is not a good idea, which previous posters have already given, and it may not even be achievable. You would need planning permission, which may well not be forthcoming as planners tend not to like ‘back garden development’ which sets a precedent, it would be a complicated and expensive project involving building to the latest building regulations and laying all necessary services (if there is insufficient ‘fall’ for gravity drainage sewage would have to be pumped if connected to the mains for instance). I hope the sale to your daughter can still be stopped. This is a very ill-conceived idea, in ‘pipe dreams’ territory, and if I were your solicitor you would be receiving very firm and unambiguous written advice not to do it.