Bit of an update.
Slow going. Although some overwhelmingly positive news, in that the council are letting us chop down the yew tree that completely ruins our garden. Normally they refuse and insist on yew trees being crowned, but we've got permission to raze it as well as the two leylandii towards the back. Being felled in late January, with the rest of the garden project commencing as soon as possible thereafter.
The rest of the house it... interesting. We're going to have to sell our flat in order to finance the renovation, which means paying a hefty early repayment penalty
Some of the quotes we've been getting are insane. We're looking to get our windows "done" as they're 100+ years old, rotting and some are producing mold. We have 17 windows and thought about replacing the casement/frame, the windows and the glass for all. We've been quoted £36k...
I understand that we can actually renovate the house without having to gain planning permission, and instead go through building regs instead - basement and loft conversions typically only need party wall agreements and building regs approval it seems, although the requirement of planning permission for such conversions in conservation areas seems to be cloudy at best. No one seems to be able to answer this. That said, should we decide to install two (small) dormer windows then we'd need to seek planning permission, and I think we might go down that route as one or two of the other houses on our road have done so.
Lastly, something that's driving me nuts, is that due to the old lady who previously occupied our house having lived there for so long, we're being treated as tenants rather the full owners by our neighbours. They keep on saying things like "well... Mrs X never did anything like that and it's shame you want to change her house so much". One neighbour yesterday said of our plans to update the windows "Mrs X would be turning in her grave if she knew you were going to do that". It's so ******* unhelpful. Given it's a terrace. Given it's a conservation area. Given most of our neighbours have lived there for 20-30 years. We ideally need to keep best relations with them. But if there's no planning permission required for the loft and basement, and party wall disputes only go so far, I'm thinking of just ploughing ahead with all the works regardless.