Buying a rural site or derelict dwelling and developing - YouTube

in this video i want to take a look  at the question of buying a site  

in a rural ireland or buying a fixer-upper  a rundown derelict cottage and doing it up  

and looking at the difficulties and the  practicalities and the issues that might  

arise so if that's sort of thing is of  interest here continue watching the video  

okay so many people have contacted me from  time to time through my youtube channel and  

have expressed an interest in buying a site  somewhere in ireland perhaps in rural ireland  

and doing up a place or building a house from  scratch and they can buy sites for cheap money in  

different counties in the country for example  kerry or along the western seaboard and so on  

but this video is looking to address some  problems or issues that will arise and which  

must be considered when you're going to  embark on such a project there's nothing  

wrong with this sort of a project it is a dream  for very many people but you do need to be aware  

for the practical considerations that you  need to take into account and weigh up  

and throw over in your mind first thing is you  can buy a site anywhere in ireland including  

around here in county kildare or indeed in carrier  cork or wexford or donegal or any place you like  

you can buy a site very very easily  and very very cheaply however  

that site is likely to be a half an acre  or three quarters of an acre or an acre of  

agricultural land and the biggest problem you're  going to have is getting planning permission to  

develop it it's not impossible but it will be  difficult and there will be a reason as to why  

your property your site is going to be relatively  cheap because the farmer or the local who's  

selling it to you knows perhaps full well that  there's no prospect whatsoever of getting planning  

and he may have tried himself on a number of  occasions but regardless of that the very first  

thing you need to consider seriously would be  the likes of planning will you get planning as i  

say it's not even possible but it is difficult  especially when you don't have a local needs  

uh criteria or qualification as it were  you may be a blow in as required to an area  

now you can get around this to a certain extent  by buying the site subject to and conditional upon  

getting planning permission this involves you  buying the site entering into the contract  

paying a deposit and it would be a special  condition in the contract that the sale will  

only complete and you will only have to fork out  the balance of the purchase money and complete the  

purchase if you get planning permission if you  don't get applying permission all bets are off  

planning permission can be a very slow process  the planning process in ireland is slow  

there's always the possibility of objections  as well and you may have to carry out various  

surveys in order to test the ground for  its capacity to do or deal with sewage  

and so on obviously you're going to have  to have meetings with local authority  

you're going to have to have planning meetings  with the local authority planning department and  

you're going to have to engage the services of an  engineer or a surveyor will be able to assist you  

and who will be familiar with the local authority  so that's the biggest problem you're going to have  

second thing is the second issue then would be  the question of services you might get a site and  

it may or may not have services however when i say  services i'm referring to sewage and i'm referring  

to water it may well be the case that there is  services close by but it's very very unlikely in  

a rural setting you're likely to have to install  a septic tank or some sort of a bio-care bio-cycle  

system which treats the sewage from your house and  allows you to discharge it safely into the ground  

and you're going to have to provide your own  water your own running water so that will involve  

the pouring of a well if you go down deep enough  you will find water anywhere in ireland however  

the difficulty will be that you will get the  depending on the topography of the particular  

property and where it's located you will you  may have to go very deep and you may have  

uh you'll be probably charging or being paid be  paying for the service by the foot as it were  

in other words the further down you have to go  to get hit water and a good solid source of water  

the more expensive is going to be so there are two  things you need to consider sewerage and services  

another thing you need to consider very carefully  would be access to your site so is there a right  

of way is there a local authority road is it taken  in charge is it on an old land commission road  

is it right away that many people have used for  many years however it's not clear who exactly  

can use it or has it been registered etc etc  you don't want to walk into a situation where  

somebody tells you you have a right away to  go down that boring or that lane and the next  

thing is you buy the site and you start your  development and somebody pops up and says you  

have no right to go down there there's no right of  way there's no right of way registered and so on  

and so forth so that's another factor you need to  consider the question then of either doing up an  

existing property a derelict property or building  from scratch would obviously involve some sort of  

construction project so there's two ways you  can go about that you can contract out the whole  

shooting gallery to a building contractor a small  building contractor who will give you a price for  

the whole deal from start to finish and you're  hoping to guard that the price won't be or the  

contractual price won't be exceeded and there  won't be significant overruns it's up to you to  

manage it to a certain extent but by and large you  have a contract with a local building contractor  

and you should be able to rely on that contract  you may on the other hand decide to go a diy route  

and you may be tight for money and you may have  certain building skills or certain diy skills  

which you believe will allow you to do the project  yourself that's great then you're going to have  

the issue of obtaining or getting subcontractors  reliable some contractors at the right price  

you're going to have to organize laborers  you're going to have to organize materials  

you're going to have to do the logistics of  ordering in the correct materials in the correct  

order getting the correct trades in in the correct  order and so on and so forth and that if you don't  

have experience is a tricky and skillful task  that does require a good bit of skill a good  

bit of experience a good bit of know-how so  there are the two ways you can go you can try  

and manage it yourself try and do it yourself try  and use your own skills yourself in the project  

be it a diy job or be a building from scratch  or you can put the thing out the tender to a  

building contractor will give you a fixed price  and you should be able to rely on that price  

they are the issues that you're going to run  into if you have a dream of buying a site in  

the countryside for cheap money 15 to 20 grand or  buying a derelict cottage that you are going to  

do up yourself or do up with the assistance of a  building contractor there's one further thing that  

i forgot to mention there and that's just to do  with the planning situation assuming you do get  

planning permission then your planning permission  will contain development levies in either in other  

words these are levies or money is payable to  the local authority for the provision of services  

it's arguable whether the local authority  would be providing any services to you or not  

but the bottom line is there will be  a condition in the planning commission  

making provision for you giving the  lump of money to the local authority  

so you need to be aware of that as well  and different counties have different  

rates of levies and some counties are more  expensive than others in the overall context  

of things it's not something that should be a real  deal breaker but having said that uh some councils  

can be very local authorities can be fairly  enthusiastic when it comes to getting in getting  

in finance obviously they have responsibilities  and so on as well and money makes the world go  

around anyway that's the situation i think there  are issues i think there are considerations  

that you need to consider if you're thinking  about getting a derelict cottage in the country  

and doing it up or if you're thinking of buying a  greenfield site a half an acre three quarters of  

an acre or an acre from a local farmer and trying  to build your own house i think they're the issues  

you're going to rent hope you find this video  useful if you do i would appreciate if you gave it  

the thumbs up down below and you may be interested  in subscribing to my youtube channel thanks a lot