Anyone converted a shed/garage into a home and can shed some light if this is possible?

Hi
I married a polish man, whom I share 2 young children with. We regularly visit Poland, we live in the uk, and was looking to buy a small holiday home as we want our children to learn the language, culture and be around polish family. The house would have also served as our retirement home as we plan to retire there as we love it there.

My mother in law has a large shed with attached garage. We'd guess it has a total size of around 60 square metres. She has said we can convert this into our home to stay close to family and reduce costs. It doesn't have heating or plumbing, just very basic electrics.

Just wondering whether anyone has done anything similar? How strict are rules about converting these types of buildings into homes? How strict are building regulations and if anyone can direct me to any useful information regarding this I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks for taking the time to read and help 😊

The building regulations are not very strict, especially if the "renovation" is done privately, but not sure if you'd want to take this route for your retirement savings. Living in Poland in a renovated shed/garage? Plus possible conflicts with mother in laws..

Let me get this straight: you want to fund the cost of a house being built (in effect the cost of converting a shed will be pretty much the same as just building a pre-fab kit house) but you will have zero ownership of that house, correct? It won't take long before your Polish family decide that there's no point a house sitting empty for 10 months of the year when cousin Janusz and his wife and three kids are all squeezed into a 40 meter apartment.

Yikes... There is "close" and there is "too close", imho...


You want to spend your retirement living literally in the yard of a Polish mother-in-law? o_O Are you really sure that this is what you want...? lol


I can understand that it may seem like a great way to cut costs, but think about how much you'll have to pay for your therapy later... lol


Oohhh, I sense family feud incoming in the future lol 👌