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