Renovating a property
Your building may need work on it before you can move in. You may want to tailor it to your own requirements or the building may need renovations to make it safe and usable (like an electrical re-wire), or to make it more energy efficient (like insulation), or to make it more accessible (like wheelchair ramps). This process can seem daunting, but is also exciting, as you are beginning to create your home!
It may be important to remind yourself of this excitement during workdays shovelling pigeon dung into sacks, or whatever you have to be doing.
Make sure your business plan accounts for any time where you are unable to get rental income. It’s often possible for mortgage lenders to defer payments at the start of a loan, but you need to think about this in advance. As standard, you need to start paying off mortgages immediately, so unless you’ve got lots of money in the bank, you need to make rent.
If you’re renovating later on in the life of the co-op, you may be able to plan to rehouse people temporarily, or do work at times when rooms are empty in between tenants. Just be sure the co-op can afford it, and plan for things to overrun sometimes.
You may be able to camp out in the house while you get your work done. Depending on your outlook, this can be disheartening or unifying. We recommend treating it as a unifying experience, though this can be challenging for some. Make sure everyone’s agreed and understood the implications of any plans to do this - for example, while a building is being re-wired you may not be able to use mains power, if there is significant maintenance to the plumbing then there may not be running water, if walls are roofs are being replaced room may be open to the elements. The exact concerns will vary depending on the work being done
Regulations
Even if your renovations are fairly minor, Building Control approval may be required. You have to give the Building Control department of your local council plans for your building and a schedule of works for them to approve. Large scale works (involving heating, drains, sewerage or new building like an extension) may need multiple inspections. A fee will be charged, but this will be small relative to the costs of the work. When the building is completed to the satisfaction of the inspector, a Completion Certificate will be issued. This is a vital document that must be retained alongside the written planning permission for use if you ever want to sell. It is also required in order to release final funds from lenders and obtain the warranty certification.
You will also have to consider fire regulations. As a fully mutual housing co-op, you are not normally required to meet the standard HMO fire safety regulations, but you are still responsible for the safety of the people living in the house (and as someone living in the house, you probably have a vested interest in keeping safe. You can talk to your local fire brigade about what you could do to make your home as safe as possible. If you leave the house in an unsafe state people could get hurt and you could be held responsible.
You can find very useful guidance at:
https://www.gov.uk/building-regulations-approval
www.homebuilding.co.uk/building-regulations/
www.homebuilding.co.uk/part-b-fire-safety/
Maintaining a property
In a collectively managed housing coop, everyone is responsible for looking after the property. Small problems will turn into big ones if they’re not remedied in time, particularly cracks, damp and leaks. Things like cracked slates or old and flaky paintwork, can reasonably quickly become rotten roof timbers or window-frames that need replacing, at a much higher cost than it would have been to fix the original problem, which may not have seemed a big deal on its own.
It can come as a surprise that all properties, but especially old ones, need much more maintenance than you imagine and that it’s never ‘finished’. In some properties, it may be that there is always some major project going on.
Routine and Extraordinary maintenance
Well-managed properties will have a ‘cyclical’ maintenance schedule. This lays out all the jobs that need doing regularly, how frequently they’re meant to happen and when they’re next due to be done. It can include small frequent things like smoke alarm testing every month and bleeding the radiators every 6 months, right up to repainting the external woodwork every 3-5 years, re-pointing (replacing the mortar between the bricks) every 10 years, or re-roofing every 30-40 years. You can ask other housing co-ops or even friendly housing associations for a copy of their schedule, though obviously it’s worth working out something that suits your particular building. For example, if it’s in a particularly exposed spot, the external jobs will need doing more frequently.
Most of the cyclical jobs would be considered routine maintenance, meaning that
a) the co-op members should be able to do them themselves
b) they should fall within a routine maintenance budget, which you set as a co-op and include in your co-ops cashflow projection.
Maintenance is often budgeted at 1-3% of a houses value per year - so if the house costs £200,000, estimate £2-6000 a year for maintenance. You will often not need this much, especially if you are able to do a lot of the work yourself, but it is better to have money left over than to put off important work because you don't have the funds.
Extraordinary maintenance covers the bigger jobs that need their own budget, both expected and unexpected. Usually there will be an initial lot when you first buy the building – possibly including conversions, reflooring or even re-roofing. However, it is likely that there will be more large projects once the co-op is feeling a bit more financially secure, such as installing solar panels, or improving insulation.
Getting the work done
Doing work yourselves can be exciting! It will usually be cheaper, involvement in the process can bring a greater sense of collective ownership in the building, and it can generate team spirit. Being part of a housing co-op is an excellent way to learn general maintenance and building skills. As well as having a go at things yourselves, consider asking more skilled people to come and work with members on more difficult tasks.
Some work you will not be able to do yourselves and may have to employ builders, plumbers, electricians, etc. Professionals will dramatically reduce the time that your property is a building site, and hopefully you will know that it is being done properly.
Deciding which jobs to contract out and which to do yourselves is not always easy. As a general guide, employ builders for: very large jobs (like extensions); anything structural or otherwise requiring Building Control approval (like removing a wall); technical trades (like electrics); large jobs that will delay other jobs until done (like laying a floor slab); or jobs that you want to be sure are done properly (like roofing). When deciding whether to pay a professional, it’s worth thinking about the consequences of doing a bad job – living with a terrible plastering job is less problematic than living with leaking plumbing or a badly installed wood-stove.
If you are lucky enough to have some tradespeople involved in your co-op, you will be able to tackle a wider range of jobs "in-house", but do make sure their contributions are properly recognised so nobody is taken advantage of.
Very often, the founding group will have no choice but to get stuck in quickly, learning as they go along, often by trial and error. As the co-op gets older it should build up institutional knowledge (and a good store of tools!). Over time, members get more and more useful information before starting on a job and are able to learn skills from each other in a supportive environment.
Employing a builder
The best way to find a good builder is by reputation, so ask around and look for recommendations. It is common practice to get quotes from a number of builders before contracting one, and a good tradesman should be happy to provide a detailed written estimate. When you have chosen your builder, make sure you have everything agreed in writing before anything starts. During the actual work, it's good practice to pop in every few days or so to ask how things are going, check that you are satisfied with the quality of work so far and make sure the builder can easily contact you at short notice if needed.
Handy hints for doing work yourselves:
- Plan out in advance what you will need, who will contribute in what ways
- Make sure you have all the tools and materials for the job
- Decide where the tools and materials will be stored when not in use (before starting, after finishing)
- Have someone responsible for co-ordinating the work, ideally someone with some skills and experience of similar jobs
- Make sure everyone is involved who wants to be
- Give people opportunities to develop skills in tasks they haven't done before
- Rotate tasks so everyone gets to try the more fun and interesting stuff
- Bear in mind inexperienced DIY-ers may need supervision from a more experienced teammate, especially with anything dangerous like powertools, and some tasks may be less appropriate for people without experience
- Make sure people can have music, hot drinks and snacks to keep morale up
- Consider having communal meals on workdays. Consider having someone(s) responsible for cooking for the team - this is just as important a role as any other.
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Work weekends
Many co-ops arrange work weekends not just for themselves, but to attract help from friends and supporters. This can generate a sense of community and collective achievement, as well as getting a lot more work done at one go. It’s also an opportunity for skill-sharing on a larger scale. This is particularly useful for those jobs where fewer tradespeople have the required skills, like lime-washing or installing wood-powered central heating. Some co-ops have also run women-only work weekends, to encourage women to be more confident at (and be recognised as capable of) tasks considered to traditionally be done by men.