Planning permission when you own a house in another county

Hi, thanks in advance for any advice on our situation!

We bought a house in a city a few years ago and now have young children and would like to move home to where I grew up to raise our family in the Gaeltacht and also be near my family as my parents elderly now and would like to be nearby.

I would be able to demonstrate local need but would there be any way around the housing need requirements? If we sold our house before applying would that work?

I've heard of stories of couples 'separating' to get planning permission, does anyone have any experience of this?

We would be open to renovating an old house too. There are a few ruins for sale at the moment (just walls standing), but I'm wondering would the same housing need restrictions apply and we wouldn't be able to get planning on a site like this anyway?

octavia24 said:

There are a few ruins for sale at the moment (just walls standing), but I'm wondering would the same housing need restrictions apply and we wouldn't be able to get planning on a site like this anyway?

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Those would require full planning too so will face the same challenge.

octavia24 said:

I would be able to demonstrate local need but would there be any way around the housing need requirements? If we sold our house before applying would that work?

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Hate to bust your bubble but a colleague talked to her local council about building as a local and they said they'd take a dim view because her job was in Dublin. An ex colleague and his wife bought land about 200m outside the village in East Cork where his wife was born and bred. They went to apply for PP thinking under "locals" rules they would qualify only to be told and no, his wife would not be considered "local" unless the land was 100m closer to the village.

You could do worse then look at the Galway planning website and see if there is anyone you know in the area who got PP recently and have a chat with them. Failing that, a good architect might be able to advise. Personally I'd play the "taking care of parents" card very strongly and you may need to put some background info together on that, letter from the local Public Health nurse, GP etc etc.