ian cooper
In the first instance, check that you don't need planning permission, most garage conversions don't, but if you live in a listed building or in a designated area (e.g. World heritage site, or place of outstanding natural Beaty or a national park) it might require planning permission. Even if you don't need planning permission you will need building regs approval. You can either have plans drawn up and submitted for approval, which does take a few weeks or you could do it under what is called a building notice. This would more or less allow you to start work straight away. The key to a building notice is employing a builder who can do the whole job from start to finish and knows about the building regulations, he can work along side the local building control and get the job completed. A good builder will know the basics of building regs and also be able to project manage and get the various trades in as and when they are required. When you say the roof needs raising and levelling, it sounds to me as if it's a flat roof. You can raise as much as you require but you can't level the roof, it needs a certain amount of fall to get rid of the water. Although you can still make the underside level. The builder will know what to do.
