Office To Residential Or HMO

Greyfriars Chambers is a landmark corner building on St James Street: a former public house, extended in an Art Deco style, refurbished as offices in 2018 and occupied by an accountancy practice, with around 365 sqm over two floors and parking to the rear. The client held it under an option agreement and needed to know, before exercising it, whether the building should become conventional flats or a large co-living HMO. Each route carries a different planning risk, build cost and income, and committing to the wrong one early would have meant abortive design fees and a weaker planning story.

We sketched the building both ways to the same standard. Option 1 tests a residential conversion into eight flats, with an extension. Option 2 tests a seventeen-bedroom en-suite HMO with the same extension, with the shared kitchen, living and laundry distributed across the plan rather than pushed into one corner, a plant room and a cleaner's store. Both layouts are colour-coded by room function with every bedroom size stated on the drawing, so the two schemes compare like for like. Room sizes on the HMO option run from 10.8 to 22 sqm, well clear of the licensing minimums.

Go, on a phased planning strategy. Establish the residential principle first through Class MA prior approval for the office-to-residential conversion, which is a low-risk application with a fixed timetable, then use that consent as the fallback while a full planning application is made for the larger co-living scheme. The co-living scheme is the higher-value outcome and the one the building suits best, but the client should never be in a position where the only consent in hand is the harder one.