Flat Refurbishment Borough

Flat refurbishment is the usual home renewal in Borough. The VOA's count for the wider Borough & Southwark Street and Southwark St George's area records 94% of homes as flats and half as built in 2000 or later. The work often happens inside a managed block near Borough High Street or the Shard, under a lease, a managing agent and house rules for contractors. We renew kitchens, bathrooms, floors, electrics and heating inside the flat, and plan the job around the building you share.

For Borough, published UK averages put a full flat refurbishment at £33,000 to £48,000 and a basic one, with budget kitchen and bathroom fittings, at £15,000 to £18,000, and London flats usually cost more (Checkatrade and MyJobQuote, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Borough: we refurbish the flat within the terms of your lease and licence to alter, protect the common parts throughout, and a registered electrician certifies the new consumer unit and circuits.

Borough flats come in newer blocks and older buildings

The flat you own in Borough is most likely in a block, and its age decides what the refurbishment involves. In the VOA's wider count, half of all homes were built in 2000 or later, and Borough's flats sit in modern and post-war blocks among older commercial buildings. A flat in a block from the last twenty years usually has sound services and needs new finishes: kitchen, bathroom, flooring, lighting and decoration, with the electrics and heating checked rather than ripped out.

A post-war flat is different. Its consumer unit, wiring and pipework may be original or patched, the heating may be old electric storage heaters, and the kitchen and bathroom have often been replaced more than once. The same wider count has only 6% of homes as houses but 18% built before 1919, so some older homes are flats in older buildings, where lath and plaster ceilings, uneven floors and shared drains come into play. We survey the flat before pricing so the quotation reflects which of these you actually have.

Housing in Borough

Around 12,140 homes make up Borough on the valuation list; 94% are flats and 6% houses, and 18% date from before 1919, 3% from between the wars and 73% from after 1945.

The lease, the managing agent and a Borough flat's building control

Before any Borough flat refurbishment starts, read the lease for the alterations clause. Leases differ: some forbid structural alteration outright, many ask for a licence to alter from the freeholder for anything beyond decoration, and a few allow non-structural work freely. Where a licence is needed, the managing agent will want drawings, a method statement and the names of the trades. A hard floor over a flat below often needs an acoustic underlay the freeholder approves. Ask for the contractor pack early, because the licence can take weeks and sets the start date.

Building control applies too where the work goes beyond like for like. Southwark's fees and charges schedule lists a building control charge for installing a new WC, shower or utility, so moving a bathroom or adding a shower room is not just a lease question. A new circuit in a bathroom is notifiable electrical work for a registered electrician. Southwark's online form lets applicants begin with a building notice, full plans or regularisation, and simple domestic work suits a building notice.

Getting materials into a Borough block without upsetting neighbours

In a Borough block, logistics shape the programme as much as the trades do. We book the lift and protect it with padded covers, lay floor protection from the entrance to the flat door and agree delivery times with any concierge. Materials that will not fit the lift, such as long worktops or bath panels, are carried up the stairs, so we measure the route before ordering. Waste goes out bagged each day rather than stacked in the common parts.

Kerbside space is tight in SE1. Southwark needs seven days notice for a parking bay suspension, which can be used for building works or material deliveries, and it charges an admin fee plus a daily rate per car space. A block may also set its own quieter hours on top of Southwark's weekday and Saturday limits. The loudest work, such as lifting tiles or cutting out a kitchen, is then grouped into a few agreed days and the neighbours below are told in advance through the agent.

Refurbishing a Borough flat for the next tenancy

A buy to let flat in Borough cannot be relet below EPC band E without a valid exemption, so energy work belongs in the refurbishment between tenancies. GOV.UK says that since 1 April 2020 landlords can no longer let or continue to let properties covered by the MEES Regulations below E. Local authorities enforce the rules and can fine per property. Southwark also states that letting a domestic property rated F or G is illegal.

In a flat, the measures that move a rating are narrower than in a house, because the walls and roof belong to the building. New electric heaters with smart controls, a modern boiler where the flat has gas, low energy lighting, draught stripping and a lagged hot water cylinder are the usual levers. Ask an assessor to model the current certificate before the work, then commission the new one at handover. We keep product data sheets so the assessor can credit what went in.

• Bathroom and shower room renewal with pressure tested pipework
• Full and basic flat refurbishments within the existing layout
• Electric heating upgrades: high retention heaters, or a heat pump where the building allows

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Borough & Southwark Street and Southwark St George's. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Work in Borough rarely sits on its own, so you may also want bathroom renovation in Borough, flat refurbishment across Southwark, London builders who work inside occupied blocks, fitting a new kitchen inside the flat footprint, flat refurbishment across London and Small Kitchen Ideas.

Why Borough Homeowners Choose GS Renovation

In a shared building, the paperwork and the conduct of the site in the common parts matter as much as the work inside. We visit the flat, then send a written quotation along with a method statement and programme that the managing agent can approve for the licence. One team handles strip out, plastering, kitchens, bathrooms, flooring and decoration. Electrics are certified by a registered electrician and any gas work is done by an engineer on the Gas Safe Register, both inside our programme. The founder is the single contact for you and for the agent.

• Acoustic floor build-ups laid to the specification in your lease
• Consumer unit and circuits certified by a registered electrician at completion
• Clean, tidy and reliable tradespeople

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254).