Free guide · 38 pages
Your Dream Home
Most renovation mistakes are made before anything is drawn. The people who regret improving their home rarely made a bad decision. They made reasonable decisions in the wrong order.
This guide sets out the right order, with two worksheets you can fill in on screen or on paper. There is a version for reading on a computer or printing, and one laid out for your phone.
What is inside
The questions it answers
What is the big mistake people make before extending?
Getting drawings done, or asking a builder for a ballpark figure, before the brief and the budget are settled. It feels like progress until the numbers come back. The guide sets out the five mistakes and how each is prevented.
What do you actually want the house to do?
Most people start with a solution: a loft, a bigger extension, knocking through. The guide starts with how you want to live, with a worksheet to agree your must-haves before anyone draws a room.
What will it cost in Surrey?
Surrey benchmarks, the costs of recent tendered projects, what moves the number most, and a second worksheet that shows what is really left for the build once fees, VAT and contingency come off.
Do I need planning permission or building regulations?
The difference between the two, when permitted development applies, and the paperwork in the order it usually comes: party wall notices, build-over agreements, the principal designer and the completion certificate.
How long does it all take?
Allow 12 to 18 months from first call to moving back in. The guide shows which stages have a set timescale and which move with the project.
Buying a house to improve?
How to find out what a house can become, and roughly what it will cost, between an accepted offer and exchange.
How do I choose an architect?
Four questions to ask anyone you are considering, and a two-minute readiness check to see where you are.
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