Flat Refurbishment Greenwich

Flat refurbishment in Greenwich is renewal inside a building you share. 55% of the borough's homes are flats, in blocks that range from converted Victorian houses to post-war estates and newer buildings; 26% of all Greenwich homes were built in 2000 or later. The work is familiar: new kitchen and bathroom, rewire and consumer unit, heating, floors and decoration. What changes is the paperwork and the logistics, because the lease, the managing agent, the block's rules and the neighbours above and below all shape when and how each trade can work.

For Greenwich, 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 Greenwich: 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.

The lease and the licence to alter for a Greenwich flat

More than half the borough's homes are flats, 55% on the VOA count, so many Greenwich owners refurbish under a lease. Before any strip-out, check whether the lease needs a licence to alter from the landlord, usually requested through the managing agent, especially for moving a kitchen or bathroom, taking up floors or touching a structural wall. The managing agent will usually want a method statement, a named contact and the working hours before materials go through the common parts.

Block rules then set the site. Many buildings allow deliveries only at set times, ask for the lift to be padded and booked, and ban waste in the communal bins. We protect the entrance hall, stairs and lift with boards and sheeting, carry materials up in manageable loads and take rubble away in bags on our own vehicles when a skip will not fit. Noisy work also has to sit inside the hours Royal Greenwich usually allows, weekdays and Saturday mornings only, and a lease may be stricter still.

Housing in Greenwich

Count the homes in Greenwich and you get about 125,080: 60% built since 1945, 17% between the wars and 22% before 1919, with flats at 55% and houses at 45%.

Floors, leaks and fire doors in a Greenwich block

Floors matter most in a flat. Replacing carpet with timber or tiles over a neighbour's ceiling changes how footsteps travel, and a lease may require an acoustic underlay or a set build-up. We lay the floor to the lease terms and protect lifts, stairs and entrance halls throughout. The borough notes that the Control of Pollution Act 1974 gives Environmental Health special powers over building noise, and in a Greenwich block the complaint usually comes through the ceiling below.

Water is the other shared risk. A new bathroom or kitchen inside the flat footprint is tested for leaks before the tiling goes on, and the waste runs are checked for fall so nothing backs up into the stack. The flat entrance door and the fire separation around the flat usually belong to the freeholder or the building's responsible person, not the leaseholder, so we leave them alone unless you have written consent. Kitchen and bathroom swaps stay where the soil stack allows.

Refurbishing a Greenwich rental flat between tenancies

A landlord refurbishment in Greenwich has two sets of rules to meet. Nationally, since 1 April 2020 landlords can no longer let or continue to let properties covered by the MEES Regulations with an EPC rating below E without a valid exemption. So the refurbishment is the moment to add insulation where the flat allows it, upgrade heating controls, draughtproof windows and replace inefficient lighting, and to have a new EPC done once the work is complete.

Locally, Royal Greenwich opened a consultation, running from 21 July 2026 to 12 October 2026, on expanding selective licensing of private rented homes from five wards to up to 18 wards. A licence carries conditions on the property and its management. If your rental sits in a ward such as East Greenwich or Greenwich Park named in the proposed designation, check whether the scheme is confirmed and plan the refurbishment with its conditions in mind. We work to the specification you or your agent set.

Post-war estates and newer towers across Greenwich

Homes built after 1945 are 60% of the Greenwich stock, and 26% were built in 2000 or later, so many Greenwich flats are likely to be in purpose-built blocks rather than converted houses. In an older estate flat, textured ceilings, floor tiles and pipe boxing are sampled for asbestos before they are touched. In a newer flat, the heating is often electric or a communal system, the ceilings hide shared services, and the developer's or managing agent's handbook sets what may change.

Tall residential blocks add a further layer. Where a building counts as a higher-risk building under the Building Safety Act, building control work there goes to the Building Safety Regulator rather than to Royal Greenwich, except work done under a competent person scheme. The accountable person will also have rules on anything that touches fire safety. For ordinary alterations elsewhere, the council's charging scheme says its building control team should be advised when a building is altered, so we confirm early which route applies.

• Secondary glazing inside windows the lease keeps with the freeholder
• Hard floors, carpet and vinyl laid over a level, sound base
• Buy-to-let refurbishments between tenancies, with the EICR and gas safety record arranged with the certifying engineers

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 35 statistical areas in Greenwich. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Alongside flat refurbishment in Greenwich, the pages that usually help next are bathroom renovation in Greenwich, our Greenwich area guide, flat renovations in London, kitchen fitters in London for flats, flat refurbishment across London and Combi, System or Regular Boiler.

Why Greenwich Homeowners Choose GS Renovation

A flat refurbishment succeeds or fails on the relationship with the block, so we plan it that way. We send the managing agent a method statement and programme, name one site contact, and keep the common parts protected and clean every day. Inside the flat, the strip-out, first fix, tiling and decoration run in one sequence. The registered electrician certifies the new consumer unit and wiring, and an engineer on the Gas Safe Register handles any gas boiler work.

• New pipework pressure tested so nothing leaks into the flat below
• Free follow-up visit after completion if anything needs attention
• Consumer unit and circuits certified by a registered electrician at completion

Reviewed jobs near Greenwich

1 MyBuilder review from Woolwich, with each customer's own job title:

• Replace kitchen extractor hob, Woolwich, 27 Apr 2024 (5 out of 5)

Read all 31 on our reviews page.

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