IF your home's loft is more valuable to you as living space than storage, converting the loft is the obvious thing to do.
A loft conversion will make your home more valuable and sellable and if you can fit a bathroom or shower room up there, as well as a bedroom and built-in storage, you have the perfect master or guest suite.
Loft conversions cost from about £20,000, depending on the amount of work involved, the number of rooms created and the type of roof and conversion.
The cheapest and easiest loft conversions are ones with skylights (eaves conversions), as the line of the roof is unchanged.
However, this isn't ideal if the loft has limited space and head height. Building out the roof to create more useable space inside is often necessary, which means a more expensive and complicated dormer, mansard or hip-to-gable conversion.
For a loft to be suitable for conversion, the useable part should be at least 2.3m high – the steeper the pitch of the roof, the better it will be for conversion.
Standing up in the loft and walking around will give you an idea of how much useable space there is.
If there isn't enough head height, even by building out the roof, you could lower the ceilings in the rooms below, but this will be expensive and disruptive and isn't practical if they're already quite low.
Another option is rebuilding the roof to make it higher, which is a radical and expensive step.
You'll also need space for a staircase up to the loft on the floor below and if this means losing a bedroom, you may not be much better off by converting the loft.
Spiral staircases can be a good space-saving solution, as can narrow (and straight) 'space-saver' staircases, although these aren't necessarily practical for everyday use and may not comply with building regulations.
You often see houses for sale with 'loft rooms', rather than an extra bedroom in the loft and this is usually because the room doesn't fully comply with building regulations.
It's a shame to spend all that time, money and effort converting the loft into a habitable room and not reaping the full rewards, but that's not necessarily the end of the matter.
If you have a loft room, it may be possible to get building regulations approval so it can officially be called a bedroom and be safe to use as one.
You can do this by, for example, upgrading the staircase or changing the windows and insulation.
Your local council's building control department will be able to advise you, as they enforce building regulations.
While planning permission can be required for loft conversions, it's not usually necessary, providing your home has permitted development rights and you stick to the permitted-development rules.
On 'designated land', which includes conservation areas and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, loft conversions are not permitted development, so you'll have to apply for planning permission.
The same goes if you live in a flat or maisonette, as they don't have permitted development rights.
Similarly, if your home's listed, you'll need listed building consent from your local council to do building work, including a loft conversion.
The council will be able to tell you whether you need planning, but you can find out about the permitted-development rules at www.planningportal.gov.uk, where there's a loft conversion guide.
Unless your house is detached, converting the loft will affect a shared wall or walls with a neighbour or neighbours, meaning that the work falls under the Party Wall Act.
To comply with the act, you'll need to give your neighbours two-months' notice of the work and unless they agree to it, you'll have to appoint party wall surveyors to draw up agreements governing the work, which can be a fraught and expensive process.
If your home's leasehold, there could be additional complications. The loft may belong to the freeholder, not you, and even if you do own it you'll probably need the freeholder's permission to convert it, depending on the terms of the lease.
