Preamble

Who: Chris Birakos & Kirstie Pottier

What: A 2 storey, 3 bedroom courtyard style house extending to approximately 1,475 sq ft

Why:

When: Plot identified in April 2012 and acquired April 2013. Construction commenced early August 2013

How:  

Where: Sommerville Road South, St Andrews, Bristol BS7 9BD

On 10/04/12 we submitted a proposal to acquire a plot of land comprising five lock-up garages with planning permission for a unique, two storey courtyard style house.  The proposal that we submitted was conditional upon the sale of our apartment, which we had recently finished remodelling.  We were in a competitive bidding situation with 4 other interested parties; roughly three weeks later our proposal was accepted.

In the following months we arranged self build development finance for the project, and embarked on selecting a building contractor and finalising the details of the plans. We also began the partial demolition of the garages.

 The sale of our property was finally concluded in December 2012.

Whilst we were all but ready to go, in the subsequent months we lost a significant amount of time ascertaining that the planning permission for the site was still live and 'extant'.  We received confirmation from the planning officer that, in his opinion, the partial demolition of the garages had amounted to a material commencement of development, and that as all the pre-commencement planning conditions had been dischardged, the permission had been implemented and so we were ready to proceed!

We fianlly exchanged on the plot on 10/04/13, exactly one year to the day since we submitted our initial proposal to acquire the plot.

Oblique view of the plot when acquired in April 2013