Would you love to live in a tiny house in the UK, but you’re not sure if you can? This article has all the answers.
Tiny homes are a wonderful concept that involves living part time or full time in a very small home. It has everything you need within it, but tends to be very compact and involves minimal square footage.
Tiny homes have taken off all over the world but are still seen mostly in America. There, it makes sense you can set up a tiny home community, or move around with a tiny home in a country with so much space. In the UK though, it doesn’t seem like tiny homes are quite as viable a concept. There isn’t as much open, wild space.
If you are interested in living the tiny life, you might be interested to know that you can live in this efficient and mindful way right here in the UK. You just need to make sure you’re following UK specific rules. Let’s take a closer look:
Sizing & Weight
A tiny home is not allowed to be any bigger than 2.55 metres wide to be legal on the road in the UK. On your average car driving license, it also cannot be longer than 7 metres.
For anything bigger you should either look at a permanent site for the house, or consider upgrading your driving license to something that allows you to legally move a larger tiny home.
Importantly, there are still restrictions on the size your home can be under different driving laws, even those that allow trailer driving, so do check with the seller of the tiny home that it fits within current road law legalities.
When it comes to your tiny home’s weight you can tow a vehicle and trailer combination of up to 8250KG if you passed your test before the first of January 1997. If you passed it after that time you are restricted to 3500KG but that doesn’t include your car weight. With an upgraded driving license you have more leeway as you can tow up to 12000KG.
Again, you need to check the most recent laws in correspondence with your tiny home weight and size so that you can be sure you’re legal at the time of driving.
Planning Permission
If you want a tiny home for your back garden, or your family’s back garden, you can, in many instances, do that without planning permission. The tiny home must not be bigger than 65 x 22 feet though and it must not be rented out. It sits under the umbrella of a caravan and extra living space when you keep it in this classification.
Of course, there are lots and lots of potential complications with having your house on your land. There are grey areas so it is imperative you speak to your local council about planning permission and legalities before you make any big decisions.
Travel
If you want to place your house away from a primary dwelling there are lots of options available to you.
You can place it on farmland or plots of land or a garden for up to 28 days, and then with permitted development rights after that point. You can often do this with residential sites, again if you seek permission.
Caravan sites will also have tiny homes on them because the home can be moved. Of course, you may still then have restrictions as to how much you can use the tiny house.
Park homes will often take a tiny home if it falls within their specific standards, but again you may have restrictions as to how much you can use it. Glamping sites are the same and can be good options if you want to let the home out.
Because so much of the UK is owned and isn’t wild, as with America, there is less freedom in terms of driving the house and parking up somewhere beautiful. However, if you’re willing to do your research you can move around and experience the best of the UK completely legally.
Extra Considerations
It is important to remember that you have to pay council tax on a tiny home if you rent or purchase land for it. If the house is used as a holiday home it doesn’t need council tax. Again, be careful with this area because it isn’t black and white and it makes sense to check in with your council to ensure you’re doing everything right.
It is also important to consider the implications of living in a tiny home full time. Checking out videos and blogs from people already living the tiny house life can be really helpful. There are plenty of people who will happily be honest about the things they love about the lifestyle and also the struggles they have with a tiny house.
Before you take the leap it can help to place your belongings into cheap self storage temporarily so that you can try the lifestyle out without properly committing to it. If you like it, it can be helpful to have permanent storage at a cheap self storage facility so you have somewhere for storing sentimental items, tools or other things that are important but don’t fit into your tiny home. If you don’t like it, you have everything you need in your cheap self storage unit to go back to a different life again.
The First Step To UK Tiny House Living Is Learning
If you are seriously interested in living a tiny home life in the UK, you absolutely can. The key is to learn as much as possible about the legal side of things, and the opportunities on offer in this vicinity. It also helps to know what you want to get out of tiny house living too, so you can understand your individual path to this brand new minimalist way of living.