Guides: what we would want to know, if it were our house

We do — the people who price and build the work, rather than an agency writing to a keyword list. What is in them comes off sites in London: what the approvals actually took, what surprised a client, what turned out to be expensive to change later. Where something is uncertain the guide says so rather than rounding it up into confidence.

Every guide carries the date it was published, and planning and building regulations change. Treat what you read as a starting point rather than an approval: permitted development rights, conservation area rules and Article 4 directions differ by borough and are revised. We check the position for your specific address as part of the job, not from an article.

Yes. Send the question with a little detail about the property and what you are planning, and we will answer it directly, whether or not it ever turns into work for us. Questions asked often enough tend to become the next guide, so it is worth asking rather than assuming yours is too small to bother anyone with.

Yes. The company works both sides of the trade, so the guides do too: landlord approvals, licences to alter, night working inside trading centres and brand rollout standards on one side; extensions, lofts, structure and renovation on the other. The cost guides sit separately and deal with what each kind of work costs in London.