Don't know if/when change in regs happened but yes, it can be done under permitted development now so long as it doesn't exceeed a certain cubic metreage in volume (can't remember what it is but it's pretty substantial if ours is anything to go by).

we had loft conversion done last year and principal reason was that we had been looking to move within SE23 - we're off Perry Vale and were thinking of moving to the other side of the tracks. We quickly realised that none of the houses we were looking at in our budget offered anything like the existing internal space we already have (and were on the market for about £200k more than ours was being valued at). So, in order to move - we would have had to spend an extra £200k to trade "up" to a smaller house and then spend another £50k odd (minumum) to get the house to suit our requirements - just not worth it.

We had always thought our loft was too small for a conversion but we figured we might as well find out - and were delighted to find we could do it. We've now gone from a 3 bed house to a 5 bed (all of them decent sizes) and we have the space we need as a family (all for around what we would have paid in stamp duty if we'd moved to the other side of the tracks). Only real compromise in terms of not moving has been the garden size but there are so many great parks locally that we can get over that!

This post was last modified: 02-04-2014 05:50 PM by AMFM.