Can I use my garage as a home office?

In most cases, yes. However, there are exceptions and may be tax implications. Homes are taxed as private properties but, warns FT Adviser, “under long-established rules, if a room in a house is used exclusively for work, any capital gain made on the sale of the property will incur a tax bill”.

So, if your garage comprises 5% of your total floor space, and you make a £100,000 profit on the sale of your home, you could be liable to pay tax on £5000 of that gain if your garage is permanently devoted to work, rather than just a room in which you happen to do some work from time to time.

Do you need planning permission to convert a garage to an office?

Not necessarily. If the external appearance hasn’t changed, perhaps because you’ve constructed an internal wall and left the garage door in place, you shouldn’t need planning permission. Even if you don’t need planning permission, you may need to comply with buildings regulations – particularly if your conversion involves moving internal walls or adding windows.

You should also be aware that if you install a new door between the living areas of your home and the garage itself to make access easier, you should use a fire door, not a regular internal door. Further, it is important to ensure your choice of lintel is adequate to support any brickwork above the new opening, and that you use shoring to support the upper masonry throughout construction. A qualified builder should be able to advise.

How much does a garage conversion cost?

The answer to this question largely depends on the size of your garage. Research suggested prices between £469 and £1200 per square metre, which included blocking up the existing garage door and basic fit-out, but didn’t include cutting out doorways to external walls. There was a considerable difference in price between converting internal and detached double garages, with the latter roughly three times more expensive, at £45,000. This certainly isn’t a cheap project.

Titan Storage has listed a range of easily overlooked factors that could affect the overall cost, including foundations that need reinforcing, insulation required by newer builds and whether the ceiling height needs to be raised.

How long does a garage conversion take?

Love Renovate advises that “a straightforward garage conversion will take around three weeks, however, expect longer if the original garage is in poor condition and needs a new roof.”

If you need to employ an architect to draw plans for more ambitious changes, it could take longer still – and you may have to wait for your chosen builder to become available, or to source supplies. The Construction Leadership Council has warned that the building industry has been particularly busy since March and that “we now also see increasingly strong performance in the commercial and industrial sub-sectors, applying further strain on the supply chain”. What this means is a shortage of essentials, like timber, plastics, pitched roofing and paint.

Our advice: get your order in early, but be prepared for a wait.

Will a garage conversion increase the value of my home?

Given that, as stated above, just a third of us use our garage to shelter a car, you won’t be surprised to learn that, according to Ideal Home, converting your garage could add £45,000 to the value of your home. If prices continue to rise, that uplift will be multiplied.

Before you dive straight in, though, if you plan to sell in the near future, consider what other factors might impact a potential sale. Is parking problematic in your neighbourhood? Do you frequently need to park on the road or, worse, around the corner? If so, converting your garage may make your home less attractive, or it may simply take longer to sell than an otherwise identical property that’s retained its garage – as a garage.