Plot next to parents' house too small? Adhere to 3m separation boundary?

Hello dear forum,

My girlfriend and I are considering building a house in 2-3 years.
My parents would let us have the plot next to their house for this, but it might be a bit too small.
Maybe someone here has comparative values to see if this is even possible.

Briefly about the values:
From my parents' house to the property boundary it is 16m.
Normally, it must be 3m from house to house to the property boundary, so -6m and then another -3m to the other side.
That makes 7m width for the house, which we find very small.
We have looked at some houses and think that 8-9m would be better for us.

Now the open questions:
Is it possible to draw the boundary of the new property 2m away from the parents' house (my parents would transfer it to us like this if possible), so we would already have gained 1m?
Or does the new property have to be at least 3m away from the old house?
Then there is the other side – here it is not building land but farmland. With the farmer’s consent, can we perhaps build 2m to the boundary here as well?

If both were possible, we might have the 9m for the house together.

Thanks for any information

Only the responsible building authority can answer that for you. What does the development plan say? Is there even one?

A reduction of the distance to the property boundary can be resolved by a building encumbrance on the neighboring property. But how it looks with minimum distances between houses is another question.
The question you have to ask yourselves: What will happen to the parental home eventually... if you "build onto it," it might no longer be sellable later. What restrictions would that impose on your parents? Shadow casting, etc...

Otherwise, a good architect can also design stylish houses with a width of 7 or 8 meters.

Thank you for the quick response DerDa

We have an appointment with the building authority next week – just wanted to hear what might be possible and to possibly address it at the appointment.
Whether there is a development plan is a good question – similar projects have been carried out by other families on the street, which is why we assumed it wouldn’t be an issue. But that will surely be clarified at the appointment with the building authority.

I had also already mentioned the shadow cast by the house – my parents don’t seem to mind. There is also a large garden at the back.

So far, we have only looked at prefabricated & solid houses from the "big" companies – for example, model house exhibitions in Kaarst and Wuppertal. In the end, we liked the solid houses from V the most. But none of those were under 8.x m....

Hello,

We have an appointment with the building authority next week - just wanted to hear what might be possible and possibly bring it up at the appointment.

Wait for the appointment; the caseworkers at the building authority are people like "you & me"

But none of them were under 8,x m....

You should worry least about that; there are also nice designs with 7.00 m ...

Rhenish greetings

Of course that's possible. Semi-detached houses have no distance at all. In many "infill developments," especially within the family, this is approved. This happens often for us.

Hello Noxus,

Hello dear forum,

Now the open questions:
Is it perhaps possible to draw the boundary of the new property 2m away from the parent house (the parents would transfer it to us like this if possible), so we would have already gained 1m?
Or must the new property area be at least 3m away from the old house?
Then there is the other side – here it is not building land, but farmland. With the farmer's consent, is it perhaps possible to also build here up to 2m from the boundary?

If both were possible, we might perhaps have the 9m for the house altogether.

Thanks for any information

You can theoretically draw the new boundary 2m from the old house, but that does not help with the permissible building development or only causes additional costs. Basically, you have 3 options:

1. The building authority approves a reduction of the usual building setback from 6 to e.g. 5m. In consultation with the building authority, the new boundary between the houses is then formed so that no further setback obligations arise. If you plan a garage between the houses, you should keep 3m and your parents 2m.

2. On the farmland on the other side, you also deviate from the 3m boundary distance and go e.g. up to 1.5m to the farmland – for this, you need a building obligation (Baulast) of 1.5m width over the full house depth on the farmland, i.e., the owner of the farmland must agree. Thus, you would have gained 1.5–2.5m of house width.

3. You buy a strip of 3–5m from the farmer. Then your property would have a width of 16–18m.

Best regards
Dirk Grafe