Flat Refurbishment Bromley

Flat refurbishment in Bromley is renewal inside a building you share: the lease, the managing agent and the neighbours above and below all shape the job. A third of the borough's homes, 33%, are flats, from converted Victorian houses to purpose-built blocks, and 10% of all the borough's homes were built in 2000 or later. We renew the wiring, heating, kitchen, bathroom, floors and finishes inside your front door, within the block's rules, whether you live there, let it or have just bought it.

For Bromley, 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 Bromley: 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.

Refurbishing one of Bromley's flats under a lease

With 33% of Bromley homes being flats, a refurbishment often starts with the lease rather than the tools. If the flat is leasehold, the lease will say whether you need the freeholder's licence to alter before floors change or the kitchen and bathroom are relocated. The managing agent may set its own working hours and access rules for the common parts. Ask for those rules early; they fix how materials come up the stairs and where waste leaves.

Logistics in a block are the part owners underestimate. Lift cars and stair carpets are protected before the first delivery, and the agent may want the protection signed off. Rubble leaves in bags rather than a skip where there is no forecourt, and a Bromley block car park is private land, so bays there are the agent's to allocate. We agree a delivery window, a waste route and a contact for complaints with the agent before the start date.

Housing in Bromley

Of the 143,450 homes the valuation list records in Bromley, 17% were built before 1919, 30% between the wars and 53% since 1945; 33% are flats and 67% are houses.

Hard floors, leaks and the flat below in Bromley blocks

Floors are a common sticking point in a Bromley flat. Swapping carpet for timber or tile can carry footfall noise into the flat below, and a lease may require a sound-deadening layer under hard floors. We lay acoustic underlay or a resilient batten system to suit the lease wording and keep the build-up low enough for doors and thresholds. Services running through the ceiling void of the flat below stay untouched unless the freeholder agrees access.

Water is the other shared risk. A new bathroom or kitchen in an upper flat sits over someone else's ceiling, so we isolate and pressure test the new pipework before boxing it in, fit accessible isolation valves and seal the wet areas. In a newer Bromley block, with 10% of the borough's homes built in 2000 or later, the risers, sprinklers or ventilation ducts may belong to the building, and the agent's rules say what we may touch.

Letting a Bromley flat: the EPC floor and MEES

A buy-to-let flat in Bromley has to reach an EPC rating of E before it is let, unless an exemption applies. The council's landlord guidance says domestic private rented property must be rated E or above, and that a tenancy may not be granted on a band F or G flat without an exemption. GOV.UK dates the rule for new tenancies to 1 April 2018, and since 1 April 2020 it covers continuing lets as well.

In a flat the energy work is narrower than in a house, because the roof, walls and windows often belong to the freeholder. The gains inside your demise come from the heating: swapping old storage heaters for modern controllable ones, or renewing a gas boiler with proper controls, plus lighting and draught sealing. We time that work in the void between tenancies, and a domestic energy assessor re-rates the flat before the new letting.

Converted houses and flats over shops in Bromley

Some Bromley flats sit in a house that was split up decades ago, and that history can matter to a flat owner. Bromley states that a building converted into self-contained flats before 1991, or after 1991 without Building Regulation approval, can be an HMO where fewer than two thirds of the flats are owner-occupied. If you own one flat in such a building, ask the freeholder how the building is classed before planning any work that touches shared walls, the stair or the entrance. Licensing and the building work it brings are covered on our HMO Conversions page.

A flat above a shop brings a different rule set. Bromley's guidance says that in a mixed-use building let separately, the domestic energy efficiency rules apply to the flats and the non-domestic rules to the shop. So the flat's EPC target is judged on its own, whatever the unit below achieves. Fire separation between the shop and the flat is a matter for the freeholder or responsible person, and we leave the floor between them intact.

• Boiler replacement on the flue route the building allows, by a Gas Safe registered engineer
• EPC improvements to meet the minimum standard for let flats
• Condensation control with extract fans and trickle vents

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 39 statistical areas in Bromley. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Alongside flat refurbishment in Bromley, the pages that usually help next are bathroom renovation in Bromley, our Bromley area guide, London builders who work inside occupied blocks, bathroom fitters in London for flats, our London flat refurbishment page and Wet Room Guide.

Why Bromley Homeowners Choose GS Renovation

Refurbishing a flat is as much about the building as the rooms. We deal with the managing agent on access, protection and waste, keep to the block's hours, and give you a dated programme you can send to the freeholder with your licence application. The founder visits before pricing to check the floor build-up, the heating and where the pipes run. A registered electrician certifies the new consumer unit and wiring, and you get the paperwork your lease and your letting agent will ask for.

• Our own trades on site rather than a chain of subcontractors
• Consumer unit and circuits certified by a registered electrician at completion
• Acoustic floor build-ups laid to the specification in your lease

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