One couple came up with a plan to build a pair of houses and make one of them their home
WORDS REBECCA FOSTER PHOTOGRAPHY FRENCH + TYE
Alex Wright and Chelsea Nelson switched from looking for a house to buy to hunting for a plot of land after realising they could get a self-build mortgage for a site that came with planning permission.
At first they took a speculative approach to their search, seeking out potential plots by looking at online maps and cycling to the area to investigate further. ‘We’d find the details of the owners on the Land Registry and write to them to explain our plans,’ says Alex.
But after an unsuccessful six-month hunt, architect Alex and interior designer Chelsea, who are both 34, began looking at sites for sale at auction – a method requiring another type of funding. ‘Buying land at auction is done with cash, and the sale must be completed within 20 days – a timeframe that precluded organising a mortgage,’ Alex explains. So in preparation for bidding on something they liked the look of, they arranged a bridging loan secured against Alex’s mum’s house.
This is how they came to buy a 100sqm plot on the corner of two Leytonstone streets. ‘It came with four single-storey garages, all full of junk,’ says Alex. Replacing all four structures with a three-bedroom, two-storey house of a similar size was a requirement of the detailed planning permission attached to the property.
While visiting the plot, the couple were approached by a neighbour who suggested they might want to consider buying part of his garden. The possibility of doing this led Alex and Chelsea to the idea of building two houses rather than one. ‘We took him up on the offer in principle and the scope of our project doubled,’ says Alex. Although their self-build mortgage wouldn’t cover the extra funds required, setting up an architectural design practice meant they could switch to commercial development finance, which would be enough for both builds.
Alex and Chelsea submitted two planning applications simultaneously – one for a single house and the other for two. If the bigger scheme was rejected by the council, they would stick to their original idea of building their home funded by a self-build mortgage. ‘We decided that we’d only buy the extra 50sqm of land if we got approval for the two houses,’ Alex explains.
He liaised with the local authority and – after some persuasion – his design ideas, which took the style and proportions of near
