(click on pic to enlarge).
All good, except a few weeks ago we received a visit from the local council officer who decided that since we now had two houses on our plot, we were liable for two lots of council tax... gulp!
The council's position was odd because it seemed to imply that if we did cough up two lots of council tax, that we could then keep both houses, which goes against the planning permission that only granted a replacement dwelling!
We suspect the planners might have something to say about confusing the word 'replacement' with 'additional' but assuming they were happy to let us keep both, we might have built the new house in a different location and converted the other house into a workshop/garage/gym/annex... nevertheless the old house was sited slap-bang in the way and simply had to go.
The council officer advised us that if we made the old house unfit for habitation (and usually that means removing the roof), we could apply to have the old house 'de-listed' from the council tax register. Removing the roof wasn't an option; we were still using the old house for storage (building materials, tools, boxes of possessions, old furniture, etc) so we needed to somehow keep a watertight shell intact but convince the authorities that nobody could possibly live there... so we dusted down the sledgehammers and got to work.
Taking down the lean-to on the east side of the house might help convince the council we were serious about demolishing the whole thing, so we decided to start there.
Unfortunately the lean-to was jam-packed with stuff that would need to be sorted and cleared out first.
Mountains of junk to sort through. We divided everything into 3 piles - keep, sell or throw away.
After much effort, we finally managed to clear the whole thing out. A lot of the larger items were sold on Ebay over the following months.
The lean-to was not built well so we reckoned it would come down fairly easily. The building had no foundations, with blockwork laid directly onto the earth! This meant the whole thing was dangerously unstable; the section of blocks above the door had not been tied in to the adjacent house, had cracked completely and were only being held up by a rotten (and frighteningly bowed) timber door frame.
The metal roof panels could just be unscrewed so removing them was easy.
Once the roof was off we could start taking down the roof timbers and block walls.
The mortar was surprisingly hard to break so most of the blocks had to be prised apart using a SDS drill with a chisel bit, before being whacked with a lump hammer. We would have used a nice, new sledge hammer for this job, but rather than deliver it, the dodgy driver for UK Mail decided he'd open up our package and steal it instead.
Smashing up the walls was hard work, but easier (and rather satisfying) if you imagined it was our local UK Mail delivery driver's head.
Slow progress. Once the walls were lower, the job became a good deal easier and safer.
The window had not been fixed in place particularly well, so removing it was relatively simple.
Whoever built the lean-to used a very strong mortar mix (or even cement!) Either way, there was no shifting the blocks without splitting the mortar first using the SDS drill. Quite sore on the arms after a time.
After much smashing, the shed was no more. We have kept the blocks as these will be crushed and used as hardcore to raise the ground levels around the new house at a later date.
Just removing the old shed, offered so much more light in the new house. We couldn't wait to remove the old house entirely and make use of all the extra garden space it would give us.
These photos were sent to the council to demonstrate that we'd begun demolishing the old house, but in order to get it de-registered for council tax, we'd need to prove that it was uninhabitable so would need to strip out some of the internal fittings and services as well.
This was what the kitchen looked like when we first bought the house back in 2012...
The lack of any heating in the kitchen, coupled with horrific damp issues, meant that everything had deteriorated rather rapidly over the subsequent 5 years.
Damp had attacked everything. The cooker had rusted like this while we were living in the house - no wonder we were so keen to move into our new home next door.
Damp destroyed our coffee machine too. Most of the kitchen was destined for the dump or the bonfire.
Yuk. Since we'd moved out (and more particularly, since the site inspector had moved out), the mice had decided to move in. The place was looking dreadful so we couldn't wait to rip everything out.
We swiftly removed all the wooden kitchen cabinets and furniture and burnt it all. The old appliances will be taken to the dump.
Next we removed all the plasterboard and tiles from the back walls. Our local dump now charges to dispose of these materials, so we will probably crush these up with the rest of the blocks and mix it into the hardcore. They actually charge more to dump one sheet of plasterboard, than it costs to buy... and then they wonder why people go round fly-tipping.
Removing the kitchen would help demonstrate that the house was now uninhabitable. To add further evidence for the council, we decided to strip out the bathroom too.
This is how the bathroom looked back in 2012...
... and how it looked after we'd wielded our lump hammers. The old copper water tank (that had been located in the airing cupboard on the right of the photo) was in a state and getting it out was quite a struggle. Once again, we discovered to our annoyance that our local dump charged for disposal of toilets, basins and baths. Is there anything that they don't charge for nowadays? What a racket!
We also discovered something rather unexpected behind the plasterboard walls... we don't think it's a Banksy, but have contacted our local art historian just to be sure!
Many years ago, the house had been owned by a railway enthusiast. He had built a large scale model railway all around the garden and locals apparently used to come and see the trains at weekends. (We still find bits of old railway track buried in the ground). His love of trains clearly spread inside the house too with this rather, err... quaint mural!
Good news. After submitting our evidence and photos, the council decided that although we had not demolished the old house fully, they would now accept that it was uninhabitable and could be removed from the council tax register. Hurrah!
They also issued the council tax assessment for the new house - this was something that we'd been dreading, as we'd read about many people doing self builds that had been hammered with ultra-high council tax banding for their new properties.
Luckily we were able to discuss the case with our tax officer on the phone. She said that strictly-speaking we should be an 'E', but after reviewing all our evidence, including the recent photos and the isolated location of the property, she felt a 'D' banding might be more appropriate (if a little 'marginal'). Double Hurrah!
