Ever thought of developing your land? Perhaps you have space to build a home next to yours, an unused garage or a big garden you struggle to maintain. Perhaps you want to pay off your mortgage or give your children a leg-up.
Selling part of your garden for a new home could be a way to help ease the housing crisis — and earn a potentially life-changing sum. Amid the planning overhaul to build the government’s promised 1.5 million homes, might you be able to cash in?
“This happens quite a lot,” says Sarah Walsh, head of land and new homes at Jackson-Stops estate agents. She helped homeowners just outside the village of Bentley, Suffolk, to sell a quarter of their one-acre garden for £240,000 in June.
“We split it off [the plot title], engaged the right professionals, got planning [for a four-bedroom property] and found [a buyer] who always wanted to build their own house,” Walsh says.
Her seller has become friends with their garden buyer, she adds. “They’re going to live next door to a very pretty house that they’ve designed, with people they really get on with. And obviously they’ve made some money in the process.”
CGI of a new four-bedroom home in Bentley, Suffolk, to be built on a garden plot sold by homeowners for £240,000
The tide is turning on ‘garden grabbing’
Detractors call this “garden grabbing”. The practice became controversial in the early 2000s, after a change by Tony Blair’s Labour government made planning permission much more likely on previously developed brownfield land, which included not only derelict factories but also gardens.
Opponents complained that developers snapped up family homes with gardens “full of flowers” to replace them with “a rash of ugly buildings”, as a Telegraph editorial put it at the time.
As soon as the Conservatives took power in 2010, they reversed the change. It all but shut off a major source of sites for smaller builders and self-builders.
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Now the tide is turning back. Although Labour has not reinstated gardens as brownfield, reforms under Keir Starmer are making it easier to get planning permission for infill plots that fill gaps between existing buildings, Walsh reckons.
In London, for example, the mayor Sadiq Khan’s latest plan for development backs well-designed infill homes within 800m of a station or town centre.
Three classic garden plot types
For planners to allow a new home in your garden, the plot has to be big enough to fit a house with its own garden, parking, bins and bikes. It must also have independent access for cars and pedestrians, says Charlie Caswell, the co-founder of Caswell&Dainow, a developer specialising in small infill sites. Although there is no “magic formula”, he picks out three plot types ripe for garden development.
1. Side-facing corner plot
Ahmet Ziya and his wife, Yesim, won planning permission to build a three-bedroom bungalow in the garden of their home in Bromley, southeast London, and sold the plot to a small developer
VICKI COUCHMAN FOR THE TIMES
Ahmet Ziya and his wife, Yesim, both in their sixties, wanted to build a home for their son’s young family at the end of their 110ft garden in Bromley, southeast London. Their semi is on a corner, so the far end of the long plot has access to a side street.
An aerial pic with Ziya’s plot marked
Even after selling the plot, the couple still have a small garden
VICKI COUCHMAN FOR THE TIMES
Planners permitted a bungalow directly opposite in a neighbour’s back garden in 2011, yet refused three applications from the Ziyas to do the same. “It was disheartening,” Ahmet says.
Last year they finally won, with help from Caswell&Dainow. Gouldstone & Co designed a three-bedroom bungalow around two courtyards, which fits on half the Ziyas’ former garden and does not overlook or overwhelm the surrounding homes.
CGI of how the Bromley bungalow, which is almost complete, will look
And a CGI of the airy interior
They sold the plot to a small developer, and the bungalow it is building is almost complete. Ahmet says it “still gives us a good amount of garden to enjoy”. They will use some of the sale price to help their son onto the housing ladder.
2. Side access to backland
Do you have space next to your house to access a large rear garden, for example via a garage or side garden?
Faye’s (surname withheld) plot in the leafy Kent village of Langton Green, near Tunbridge Wells, is a classic example: she is sacrificing her side carport to sell part of her half-acre back garden for development.
Faye is selling this plot in her garden in Langton Green, near Tunbridge Wells, for the development of a five-bedroom family home
“My husband died seven years ago. It was a burden to keep up such a big garden,” says Faye, 73.
She tried to sell her land to a developer before, but he wanted to build ten new homes on it and was refused permission in 2019. Neighbours objected — some with placards. “Don’t be greedy,” she says, laughing.
In April Caswell&Dainow helped Faye to win permission for one five-bedroom family house in her garden. It has two “kissing gables” inspired by the catslide roofs of the surrounding brick houses.
CGI of the home that will be built on Faye’s former plot
The application included reports on badgers, bats and a protected oak that the local tree officer initially feared would be reduced to a “planned bonsai”.
Faye plans to give the money to her four children — and go skiing. “I didn’t want to be in the nursing home and find out somebody sold off my garden.”
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3. Rear street
In Barnet, north London, an elderly homeowner wanted to pay off his mortgage after interest rates shot up in 2022. He no longer used his long garden because of poor mobility. His plot backed on to a rear street, where it left a gap in the streetscape.
An elderly homeowner sold this plot in Barnet, north London, for the development of a new three-bedroom house
Novak Hiles Architects designed a new three-bedroom house facing the rear street. It cleverly marries art deco curves from a modern house next door with the pitched roof and bay windows of surrounding postwar semis. It won consent last year and enabled the owner to stay in his home debt free, says Adam Dainow, co-founder of Caswell&Dainow.
CGI of the new Barnet build
Planning costs at least £25,000
To find out if the bottom of your garden might be ripe for development, where do you start? There are two common routes.
The first is to speak to an estate agent with a record of selling new homes and building plots in your local area. Walsh says: “A trained eye can go out and say to someone, ‘You’ll probably get planning here,’ or, ‘No, it’s going to be a lost cause.’” Then you engage a planning consultant and architect at your own cost to draw up plans.
Alternatively, you can work with a property developer specialising in small sites. Caswell&Dainow, for example, will assess your land. If they think it is promising, they will sign an option contract with you, which gives them the right to buy the land for a pre-agreed price if they win planning permission. In return, they carry all the planning costs and risk.
Adam Dainow and Charlie Caswell, founders of Caswell&Dainow, a developer specialising in small infill sites
“We’ve never done a planning application for less than £25,000,” Caswell says. Getting consent for one house costs “anywhere between £20,000 and £50,000”, he adds. The £588 planning application fee for one home is just a fraction of this cost. The bulk of it goes to architects, planning consultants and a long list of surveys, from bats and trees to flooding and biodiversity net gain.
“Planning is not easy in the UK. It’s a complicated, expensive process. You’ve got to partner with the right team to do it. That’s key,” Dainow says.
Don’t economise on planning, Caswell adds. “If you cut corners, you’ll be pouring your money down the drain because if you don’t get planning, there’s no value uplift. We put everything we can into the planning application to give us the very best chance.”
Key factsSelling a garden for a home could help ease the housing crisis and bring financial gainPlanning reforms are making it easier to gain permission for infill plotsThree classic garden plot types are ideal: side-facing corner, those with side access to backland, and those backing onto a rear streetPlanning permission costs at least £25,000 and requires professional helpHomeowners in London can earn £100,000-£200,000 from selling small garden plotsConsider the impact on your own property’s value and how you will feel living next to a new developmentYou typically make up to £200,000
Begin with what the end building will sell for, based on sold prices of comparable properties in the area. Then deduct the planning and build costs (“You can’t build for below £2,000 per square metre,” Caswell says) plus a 20 per cent profit for the developer. What is left is the land value.
As a rough guide, homeowners in London stand to pocket between £100,000 and £200,000 for small garden plots like the above examples sold through Caswell&Dainow.
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Some make significantly more. In 2021 one Suffolk homeowner made £775,000 from selling just over an acre of their garden with two planning consents, including for a grand design of “architectural excellence”, Walsh says. Planning took four years and cost “probably quadruple” what you normally spend.
In 2021, the owner of this home near Woodbridge, Suffolk, made £775,000 from selling just over an acre of their garden
But she warns: “One thing that is often overlooked is considering how it will affect your own property.” Check what your home would be worth if a new property is built next to it. In some cases, you could lose more money than what you would gain from selling the land, Walsh says. “And how would you feel about living next door?”
Selling garden land is (usually) tax free
If your garden is up to 1.2 acres (0.5 hectares) in total, selling part of it is usually exempt from capital gains tax thanks to private residence relief (PRR). Relief may still be possible on a bigger plot.
If you have a mortgage, you need the lender’s consent to sell some of the land. They may require you to use some of the money to reduce the balance, and may raise interest rates.
To make the sale official, you must split part of your land from your property title to sell it to someone else. This is known as “splitting the title”, for which you need a land registry document called TP1 to transfer part of the registered title. The HomeOwners Alliance strongly advises using a conveyancing solicitor with experience of land sales.
Dainow has a last warning: “Be patient. Planning isn’t quick. You might be looking at 12 months or more to get that pot of cash.”
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