Benefits of building your own house

The benefits of building your own house are great. Not only do you get a property that's built to your exact requirements, innovatively designed, greener and more energy efficient but you'll also end up with a property which even after taking account of the price of land has probably cost you far less than an equivalent house on the open market.

People across most of Europe have been building their own homes for centuries yet in Great Britain only about 8% of new homes built last year were built by self builders with the other 92% being built by volume developers such as Bovis and Barratt. 60% of new houses in France, Germany and Italy last year were self/custom builds and in Austria it was 80%.

So why don't more people in the UK build their own homes? The main drawback has always been the lack of available plots of land. Mark Twain once famously said "buy land, they're not making it anymore". The other big stumbling block may be your Local Planning Authority who’ll always have the final say on where new houses can be built.

However, things are now starting to change and the momentum for self-build/custom build is steadily growing and what's fantastic is that this move is fully backed by the Government.

In March of this year an Act of Parliament called the "Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Act 2015" was passed which places a duty on English local authorities to keep a register of individuals and community groups who have expressed an interest in acquiring land for self-build and custom build projects.

The Government is also intending to introduce a "Right to Build" where once registered, individuals or groups of individuals would be offered plots of land at market prices. This would either be council owned land or plots of land that’s reserved for self-build as part of a larger development. They’re also intending to extend the current “help to buy” scheme to include self/custom builders with the introduction of a “help to build” scheme. All of these measures have cross-party support so they will happen regardless of which political party is in power.

In addition to this local councils have been told by Government to make allowances for self build housing in their Local Plans. If they don't then their Local Plan will not be passed by the Planning Inspectorate when it comes up for public inspection. In March 2015 Brandon Lewis MP (Minister of state for Housing and Planning) wrote to the Chief Executive of every Local Authority in England reminding them of their duty with regard to self build and to recognize the demands of people who wish to build their own homes.

Self/custom builders are now also exempt form the Community Infrastructure Levy and Section 106 contributions. These charges are financial payments towards improvements to community infrastructure and would often add many thousands of pounds to the build cost.

Self/custom builders are now treated exactly the same as other housebuilders in being able to reclaim the VAT spent on building materials. This is regardless of whether they’re self or custom building and with VAT at 20% this used to add tens of thousands of pounds to the build cost.

It’s now widely recognized that national house developers on their own are not going to be able to supply the number of new homes that the UK needs, which is why the Government and other political parties are giving their full support to the self/custom build movement and the more individuals that register their interest with their local Council the more it will need to sit up and take notice of the demand for self/custom build in their area and act accordingly.

To register your interest in self/custom build please visit www.localselfbuildregister.co.uk

For more information please contact:

Mike Royall

11 Hortham Lane

Almondsbury

BS32 4JH

01454 625771