Anyone ever converted a building to a house?

I get regular email updates from zoopla and rightmove about houses with land for sale. A week or so ago I saw some redundant former telephone listening buildings being offered for sale on one of the emails, had a look as they caught my eye but they had no prices so I assumed they would be expensive, and left it at that.
Stumbled upon the email again today and found they had prices on them on the estate agents website, and they are not awful!
One of them has really caught my eye, it has outbuildings and is set in nearly 5 acres, with extra land available to purchase as well. I've google stalked it and actually viewed a house up the road from it a few years ago, it's a lovely area and very close to some forestry hacking.
It ticks all our boxes, BUT has no planning permission but the details say that the local council are happy to work with people to develop it.

So my question is, has anyone ever converted an ex commercial building? Was it very hard work and did it cost a lot more than you were expecting?
I love watching grand designs and quirky buildings always catch my eye, but it always looks like they make it harder and more expensive than needs be.

But there's the catch 22 situation, the council will work with you AFTER you've bought it but it's extremely unlikely they will before so you can't know exactly what the council planners might want to have done on the building, it might not be a lot or it might be mega bucks, it's a gamble for anyone who is not a full time proffessional developer. Remember the people who buy these types of building for conversion are doing it all the time, they are on first name terms with all the planners, they know the regulations better than the council planners themselves, and they often have the resources to offer a 'carrot' I'm not talking bribes here but the council might want a new community centre built, the council can't afford it but to a developer it might be peanuts so he offers to build one. It's all legal and no planning department people benefit, the commuity benefits and the developer gets his property.

You could try to make an appointment to speak to one of the council planning people, if you are lucky (and they are not 'too busy') they might see you and then they will tell you in broad terms what they expect to be done but once again the problem is that you'll not get it in writing until you own the place and it will be hard to get quotes for the work unless you have some detailed architects drawings.

It's not impossible but remember that property developement is a full time job and one which usually requires years of experience, it is NOT like the TV programmes make it out to be

Yes we have done it. Yes it's hard work and yes it tends to end up costing more but this depends on a number of factors. We did it and my OH has done it many times before whilst holding down other full time jobs so I wouldn't say it's a full time job.

Neither of us are proffesional developers and we certainly aren't on first name terms with anyone in the council never mind planning.....as for the "carrot" nope never happened either!

I wasn't saying it happens every time, anyway I think Scottish councils are more 'buyer friendly' than English ones and maybe have more money Every council in England will be short of money in the next few years as everyone knows so personally I see them trying to do more deals 'tho I maybe should have said it's usually on the larger developments.

Hehe yeah i think that is often what happens on actual housing developmenrts, e.g. Company builds 20 private houses but then needs to build ten council houses etc. Dont see it happening on just individual properties

I wouldn't buy it without making sure you can get planning permission for the kind of house you would want to convert it into.

Years ago (when I was in my early teens) my parents looked into buying a small rundown old cottage that had a stable building quite close to it. They wanted to make the cottage bigger if they bought it. The council would only consent to planning permission if the cottage was joined to the stable building to make a narrow L shaped house.

They would not give permission for anything else, even though the plans they wanted to be used resulted in a house so narrow that you would have to walk through two of the proposed bedrooms to reach the other bedroom and the bathroom, and the fact that we wanted to use the stable as a stable.

Needless to say, my parents decided not to buy.

Defo see if there is any past history on people applying for it to get converted. If it's in a conservation area then it might be very tricky and you'll have to use lots of expensive materials!

It often ends up expensive and overrunning, especially if the weather is VERY wet or VERY cold... and this is britain, so that can be inevitable.

The details say it's a brown field site and 'Council indicated that their support in principle is for the re-use of the individual buildings and associated land and they are willing to work with an end user to achieve development compatible with the area'.

The building looks big enough that it could be made into 2 or 3 decent sized properties, which would be perfect for us, and theres out buildings for a large garage/workshop and a stable building. If we bought some of the extra land there would be enough land for a small caavan site as well.

We are very tempted to view and see if the building has potential for multiple properties.

Might be worth trying to meet the planners and find out exactly what that means

If you go ahead with the caravan park I'll be your first customer

The building is completely not compatible wih the area anyway, it looks nothing like the lovely farmhouses around it

Been looking over the details again and think we may make a arrangements to view and then if it seems like a possibility contact the council about planning. Off to look at the councils website on planning now, but I know they tend to be pretty good with planning when it involves tourism or livestock.