Flat Refurbishment London

Flat refurbishment in London means renewing a flat's wiring, heating, kitchen, bathroom, floors and finishes while the building around it carries on as normal. Your neighbours stay in their homes above, below and across the landing, and the lease decides much of what you may touch. Before a single board comes up, you usually need the freeholder's licence to alter, a floor specification that meets the lease, and a plan for getting materials up the stairs without damaging the common parts. This page is written for owner-occupiers, buy-to-let landlords between tenancies and buyers of a dated flat, in a mansion block, a purpose-built block or a converted house. It covers the consents, the order of work in an occupied building, the rules on electrics, fire and sound, what a flat refurbishment costs, and the mistakes that most often end in a dispute with the managing agent.

For London, 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 London: 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.

What is included in a flat refurbishment?

A London flat refurbishment renews everything inside your front door while the layout stays as it is. The usual scope is a new consumer unit and rewire, a new boiler or electric heating where the block allows it, a kitchen and a bathroom refitted in their existing positions, new floors, replastering where needed, joinery and decoration. A mansion flat often has filler-joist or pugged timber floors, deep skirtings and plumbing that runs into shared stacks. If the block is listed, works inside the flat that affect its character need listed building consent, even like-for-like replacement of original joinery or plasterwork. A flat in a purpose-built block from the 1960s or 1970s has concrete slabs, thin partitions and often electric storage heating. A flat in a converted Victorian house sits on timber joists shared with the flat below, so sound and leaks travel easily.

The edge of a flat refurbishment is set by your lease rather than by the walls. Many leases give you the plaster, floor finishes, internal doors and the services that serve only your flat. The structure, the main walls, the roof, the windows and the entrance door are often retained by the freeholder, even though you live with them every day. Work to those parts needs the freeholder's agreement, and sometimes the freeholder does it at the block's cost. A good refurbishment plan therefore starts with the lease plan and the repairing covenants, then lists the work in two columns: yours to do, and theirs to approve. Ask the managing agent about planned major works, such as new windows or a roof, before you spend on the same items yourself.

How London's block types, licensing schemes and communal heating shape a flat refurbishment

London's block types shape a flat refurbishment before any design choice does. Mansion blocks are concentrated in Marylebone, St John's Wood, Bloomsbury and Westminster, with red brick blocks in Kilburn, and their leases often control floor finishes and working hours closely. Post-war council blocks make up much of the housing in Bethnal Green, Hackney, Holloway, Kentish Town and Kennington. A flat bought from one on a long lease usually still has the council or a housing association as freeholder, so the licence to alter goes to them. Many of those blocks, and many newer developments, are heated by a communal system or heat network, with a heat interface unit in each flat. There you usually cannot fit your own boiler. The flat may have no gas supply, and the unit and its pipework serve other homes, so they move only with the freeholder's agreement.

If you let the flat, check whether the borough runs selective licensing, because it can cover single-household lets in flats as well as shared houses. Newham's designation covers every ward except Royal Victoria and Stratford Olympic Park. Waltham Forest's runs in every ward except three until April 2030, and Brent's two designations leave out only Wembley Park ward. Hackney's covers 17 wards from May 2026 to April 2031. Wandsworth says that in a converted block inside a designation, each flat needs its own licence. Bromley, by contrast, runs only mandatory HMO licensing. Schemes start, end and change their ward lists, so check the council's current map before you budget. The landlord applies for the licence, and its conditions on gas, electrical and alarm safety are easiest to meet while the flat is empty and the walls are open.

What to agree with the freeholder before a flat refurbishment

Many leases need the freeholder's written consent, a licence to alter, for anything beyond decoration or like-for-like replacement, so check the alterations covenant in yours. Covenants vary: some forbid structural alterations outright, some allow them with consent, and some permit non-structural work without asking. The application normally goes through the managing agent, with a specification and details of the contractor. Many freeholders pass the file to their own surveyor, and the lease often lets them recover that fee and their legal costs from you. The licence then sets the working hours, how the common parts are protected, where waste may be stored, and what floor finish is allowed. Apply early, because a licence can take weeks to agree, and where consent is required, starting before it is signed is a breach that tends to reappear when you sell or remortgage.

The block's own rules sit alongside the licence. Many blocks restrict noisy work to set hours on weekdays, ban work at weekends, and require the lift to be booked and fitted with protective panels before it carries materials. Some ask for a method statement, a copy of the contractor's risk assessment and the electrician's scheme registration before work begins. Shared services need arranging too. Draining down a riser or isolating a shared supply affects every flat on it, so the managing agent has to notify the other residents in advance. We read the lease, the licence and the block rules before programming the work, then prepare the documents the agent asks for. You remain the applicant, because the licence is an agreement between you and your freeholder.

How a flat refurbishment runs in an occupied block

A London flat refurbishment starts in the common parts, not in the flat. On the first morning the entrance, stairs, landings and lift are protected with boards and runners, and the route is photographed so its condition is on record. Parking is the next constraint. A van usually needs a suspended bay or a permit arranged with the council in advance. A skip on the road needs a licence too, so bags collected to a booked slot are often the practical choice for a flat. Materials go up by lift where the block allows it and by hand where it does not. Plasterboard, kitchen units and a bath all have to turn the corners of a shared stair, which is why sizes are checked at survey rather than on delivery day.

Inside the flat, the work is planned around the flat below and the block's hours. The loudest strip-out days are bunched together, and the neighbours are told the dates beforehand. New cables, pipework and any extract ducting then go in, and the pipework is pressure tested before anything is covered, because a leak here runs into the flat below. Where the lease requires acoustic flooring, the sound layer goes down before the finished floor, isolated from the walls at its edges so footsteps do not bridge into the structure. Keeping the kitchen and bathroom in their existing positions usually keeps their wastes on the existing connections to the shared stack. A registered electrician certifies the electrics, a Gas Safe registered engineer signs off any gas boiler, and copies of both certificates go to the managing agent.

Building regulations, fire safety and consents for a flat refurbishment

Planning permission is rarely needed for a flat refurbishment, but building regulations and the block's fire safety arrangements still apply. New electrics fall under Part P and an unvented hot water cylinder under Part G, and both are normally self-certified by registered installers, whose certificates the managing agent and a buyer's solicitor will ask for. Heating in a flat raises questions a house does not. A combi boiler needs a flue route the building allows, and a new flue through an external wall usually needs the freeholder's consent, because that wall is rarely part of your demise. Flats have no householder permitted development rights, so replacement windows that change the building's appearance can need planning permission as well as the freeholder's consent. New windows also need building regulations approval, normally self-certified by a FENSA or Certass registered installer, with a council building notice as the fallback.

In a block, the flat entrance door and the walls and floors between flats separate your home from the escape route and from your neighbours. The freeholder or the building's responsible person manages them under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Do not replace the entrance door or cut through a floor, ceiling or wall shared with another flat for a cable or pipe without their agreement, and fire stop any service that passes through. A higher-risk building, meaning a block at least 18 metres or seven storeys tall with at least two homes, changes who does building control. There the Building Safety Regulator replaces the council, and notifiable work needs its approval before it starts. Since October 2023 only some types of competent person scheme work can still be self-certified in such a block, so ask each installer before relying on it.

What a flat refurbishment costs, and what moves the price

A full flat refurbishment costs £33,000 to £48,000 and a basic one £15,000 to £18,000, according to Checkatrade's 2026 cost guide. These are UK figures rather than London prices, and London labour usually costs more. In Checkatrade's words, the basic tier includes a new kitchen, painting, new flooring, joinery work and modifying the bathroom. The full figure covers every room. Within those totals, a full rewire of a one-bed flat starts from £3,900 on Checkatrade's UK figures, and replacing the consumer unit alone costs £350 to £750 on MyJobQuote's UK guide. Where the lease requires acoustic flooring, sound insulation under the new floor adds £45 to £160 per square metre, again a UK figure from MyJobQuote. Your own price comes from a written, itemised quotation after we have surveyed the flat and read the lease.

Access, the block's paperwork and what the strip out reveals decide where a London flat lands against those ranges. Access comes first. A top floor flat with no lift, or a block that limits working hours and bans weekend work, adds days to the programme and labour to every delivery. The paperwork follows: the freeholder's surveyor's fee and legal costs for the licence, and any fire stopping specification the agent asks for. Asbestos is a block question too. The managing agent's asbestos register covers the common parts, not the inside of your flat, so textured ceilings or old floor tiles in an older flat need their own survey before they are disturbed. Then there are hidden defects, such as a leaking waste under the bath that has rotted the joists. Each belongs in the quotation as its own line, priced before you agree to it.

Mistakes that cause disputes on flat refurbishments, and choosing a builder

Disputes on a flat refurbishment usually start with the neighbours or the freeholder rather than the finish. Engineered boards or tiles laid straight onto the old subfloor, so the flat below hears every step and the freeholder demands the floor comes up. A shower tray fitted without a tested seal, leaking through the ceiling below within weeks. A cable run drilled through a compartment floor and never fire stopped. Work started before the licence was signed, so the managing agent halts it and the contractor charges for waiting. A lift damaged by an unprotected delivery, with the repair billed to the flat owner. None of these shows on handover day, and each costs far more to reverse than it would have cost to prevent.

Choosing a builder for a flat means asking questions a house builder may never have faced. Ask whether they have read your lease and licence, and who will deal with the managing agent. Ask how they will protect the common parts, how materials will reach the flat, and how waste will leave it. Ask what acoustic floor build-up they propose and whether it meets the standard in your lease. Ask who certifies the electrics and who commissions the boiler, and whether the managing agent will receive copies. Ask whether they will complete the managing agent's contractor pack before the start date, and who the agent should call if a neighbour complains. Ask for an itemised quotation that names the licence conditions it has priced.

• Common parts protection: floor sheeting, corner guards and lift lining
• Flat entrance door replaced as a certified fire door set, with the freeholder's written agreement
• Buy-to-let refurbishments between tenancies, with the EICR and gas safety record arranged with the certifying engineers

Two or three things usually come up alongside flat refurbishment on a London job: bathroom renovation in London, flat renovations in London, kitchen fitters in London for flats and Condensation or Damp.

Why London Homeowners Choose GS Renovation

GS Renovation plans a flat refurbishment around the building as well as the flat. We read the lease and the licence conditions before programming, protect the common parts, and keep the managing agent informed through one named point of contact. Founder and director Abdelaaziz Saaid brings more than 30 years of hands-on experience. The firm's own trades carry out the building work rather than a subcontractor chain. A registered electrician and a Gas Safe registered engineer, arranged by us, do the certified work, and the managing agent receives copies of their certificates. Building control is coordinated on every notifiable job. You receive a written, itemised quotation after a survey, and on MyBuilder the firm is rated 4.9 from 31 reviews.

• Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
• Acoustic floor build-ups laid to the specification in your lease
• The lease and licence to alter read before a flat is quoted

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