Self-building in Wicklow with FPP (Full Planning Permission) isn’t as daunting as you might think. The challenge, which I haven’t experienced directly, is to obtain the planning from Wicklow County Council. This council and their respective planning department are well known for being one of the most difficult counties in Ireland to obtain planning.
In my previous post, I discuss how we got our self-build mortgage following a disastrous experience with one of the local banks. I’ll now explain how and why I got a second self-build mortgage as a first-time buyer before we had even broken ground.
A site with Full Planning Permission
That said, if you want to be Self-building in Wicklow with FPP, my advice is to look for a site that already has FPP. This obviously short circuits the challenge completely. However, if you want to build and live in the country there are several challenges that you will need to overcome. We found a site within the townlands of Wicklow. The original site owner was able to obtain FPP and sell the site with it. Something that is not possible in the Wicklow countryside unless you are from the area, or at least within eight kilometres from where you were born and raised.
The FPP that we purchased was for a modest three bed, three bath detached house that was modelled on the other homes in the estate. This meant that the outside of the property must blend and be the same as other houses in the estate. What the original architect had therefore done is just that. So the rooms on the first floor as well as the kitchen were slightly smaller than we liked. What could we do?
It turns out you do not need planning permission if you are extending to the back of your property. However, it can’t be more than 40 square meters. You must also have a minimum of 25 square meters left as your garden. Check with your local council for yourself on this though.
The second mortgage
Hence a second mortgage. The first mortgage was granted on the original design and associated costs. The second mortgage that I wanted was in order to extend the rooms upstairs and the kitchen cum dining area. So, I ran the numbers again finding the cost per square meter which I then discussed with Allan who was just about to start the groundworks (foundations). We agreed a price for the extra work, but I didn’t want to slow Allan down on the groundworks. He was fantastic and said that they would start the foundations as if I already had the second mortgage. “Dig your ditches”!
I spent a few more days double checking all the mortgage requirements and then submitted. The person who I dealt with for the first one had said that in principle it shouldn’t be a problem so long as the LTV (Loan to Value) was still 90%. Meaning that I need to have a further 20% deposit on the new build cost since this would be classed as a second mortgage.
About two weeks later I was contacted by my bank and told that they would grant the new mortgage on the same terms as the first i.e., as though I was a first time buyer. This was fantastic news. It meant several things but in the mains it meant I only needed a 10% deposit, and I could use the new valuation against my first-time buyers grant claim. Only difference with the terms was that the second mortgage could only be drawn down in total once the house had been fully commissioned.
We didn’t know that this would end up as an issue yet since we could not have known that a global Covid19 pandemic was on its way.
