r/BEReal_Estate

Hi everyone,

We're interested in buying a house in Flanders that we really love, but we've discovered a potential urban planning issue and would appreciate some advice from people who have been in a similar situation.

Some background:

- The house was fully renovated in 2021 by the current owner.
- At the back of the house, there's a kitchen extension that appears to have been built around the 1970s.
- However, this extension does not appear on the latest municipality-stamped plans that we have seen.
- The current owner says they did not build the extension- it was already there when they bought the house.
- During the 2021 renovation, they did however modify the extension by installing a large sliding glass door in the kitchen.
- The owner also says that because the extension dates back from the 1970s, it is now covered by prescription and that the urban planning information states there are no urban planning violations (although I have not seen that document, and he possibly talks about the document he received when he purchased the house).

There is another point that worries us:

- 3x Velux roof windows were added at the back of the house when the attic was converted into a master bedroom
- These Velux windows and the converted attic also do not appear on the old plans.

We're trying to understand how concerned we should be.

If the municipality's information states there are no planning violations, but parts of the house don't match the official plans, is that generally considered acceptable in Flanders? Could this create problems later if we want to sell the house, renovate further, or apply for permits? Does the fact that the owner made changes to the extension in 2021 (the sliding window) affect the argument that the extension itself is protected by prescription?

Thanks!

Hi everyone,

We’re in the process of buying our first home in Belgium and would really appreciate some advice from people who’ve been through this.

We’ve received all the mandatory documents from the seller except the urbanization (renseignements urbanistiques). The estate agent initially said it would be available by the end of the month, but has now informed us that the municipality needs at least a month to issue it and they’ll send it to us as soon as they receive it.

The agent suggested we could already submit an offer and make it conditional on the urbanization information, but we’re hesitant. Our thinking is that the urbanization document could reveal information that might affect the value of the property or our willingness to proceed, and it could also influence the price we’d be prepared to offer.

So I’m wondering:

• Is it common in Belgium to make an offer before receiving the urbanization information?
• Would you wait for the document before making an offer, or would you submit one with conditions?
• Does making an offer “subject to the urbanization information” provide enough protection in practice?
• Have any of you encountered issues in the urbanization document that changed your decision or helped you negotiate the price?
• If you were in our position, what would you do?

For context, we’ve already visited the property twice, are genuinely interested, and we’re not trying to delay the process unnecessarily—we just want to make an informed decision before committing to such a significant purchase.

I’d really appreciate hearing from people who have bought property in Belgium or work as notaries, real estate agents, or in urban planning.

Thanks!

I’ve bought a property that requires some renovations, the main construction work will be roof replacement, and raising half of a split pitch roof up with timber extension to create a usable second floor (I’m making it sound extensive but I think this is not that hard, think dormer window but full half roof so it will need architect plans and permits.

I also want to add a verandah at the back and knock through the wall for entrance to it, plus I want to close up the existing front door and shift the front entrance to what is now the back door.

Also external insulation and new windows.

Does anyone know of any companies in or around Ghent that have an in-house architect who could draw the plans and handle the permit part?

Hi everyone,

While looking at properties myself, I found it difficult to answer a few practical questions:

• How does this asking price compare with real sales prices for similar homes in the same area?
• How do the areas I am considering compare on prices and affordability?
• Even if we could afford our "dream home", would it still be a sensible and sustainable purchase month to month?
• How have prices and sales activity in an area evolved in recent years?

I ended up building a small interactive explorer to help me compare those things more systematically.

It helped me put home listings we were interested in into context, compare them with local sale-price benchmarks, follow price and sales-volume trends, and translate a purchase price into a rough monthly loan cost and upfront cash requirement.

It covers Belgian areas from province to commune level, with benchmarks for different home types and price levels. Selecting an area also gives a short summary of its prices, affordability and recent trends, helping put it in context within Belgium.

You can also enter your own income, target price, available own funds, mortgage rate and term. The map and rankings then update across Belgium, with estimates of monthly repayment, mortgage burden and upfront cash required.

I put it online in case it is useful to others:

https://www.belgiumdata.com/en/belgium-home-affordability-explorer

Feedback is welcome, especially on anything unclear, missing, or misleading.

We recently bought a house and our contractor started the demolition of the first flour which is in the attic. Our initial plan was to only keep the roof structure, isolation and to redo everything inside.

While stripping the attic, we discovered important fire damage to the top of the wooden roof structure, almost on the entire surface of the roof.

Our engineer hasn’t done his calculations yet but there is a chance we might need to completely replace the entire roof structure, as we wanted to redo the tiling at some point and put some external isolation which will increase the weight on the structure.

These damages were impossible to notice during our visits since everything was hidden behind gyproc panels and nothing is visible from the outside so we can talk about hidden defect. However, to get some compensation from the seller we would need to prove that he was aware of this.

My plan was to either find proof that the fire happened when he was the owner (I contacted a regional service that provides reports for firefighter intervention), or that at least a part of the attic renovation took place when he was the owner (found a date on a piece of gyproc and will look for other clues), also still need to get the DIU from the notary.

Already a big chunk of the floor was demolished by the contractor (they haven’t evacuated anything yet). Should I leave the waste on the group or are pictures and videos enough as prove?

What else would you do now to make sure we can get a settlement or win this case against the seller if we need to go to court? Thanks !