Flat Refurbishment Old Street

Flat refurbishment in Old Street applies to 99% of the area's homes, the share the valuation list records as flats. They range from post-war council estate flats and modern apartment blocks to warehouse conversions, and 38% of all homes here were built in 2000 or later. Refurbishing one means renewing the kitchen, bathroom, electrics, heating and finishes inside your own front door, while working within the lease, the managing agent's rules and a building you share with neighbours.

For Old Street, 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 Old Street: 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 blocks Old Street flats sit in, and what each allows

The kind of block decides what a flat refurbishment in Old Street can change. The valuation list records 76% of homes here as built after 1945 and 38% as built in 2000 or later, and the site describes the housing as post-war council estates and modern apartment blocks with some warehouse conversions. Each of those sets different limits on what can be opened up, rerouted or replaced inside your front door, so the survey starts with the building and only then moves to the flat.

In a post-war estate block, walls and floors are often concrete, so chasing for new cables and pipes is limited and surface routes or dry lined service zones are planned in advance. Warehouse conversions have their own quirks: exposed brick, steel columns and long open floors where the refurbishment is mostly services, joinery and finishes. In a newer apartment block the risers, sprinkler or alarm heads and fire stopping belong to the building, not the flat. In an ex-council flat the freeholder whose consent you need may be the council itself.

Housing in Old Street

About 6,800 homes are listed for Old Street, and the mix is 1% houses to 99% flats, with 76% built after 1945, 5% in 1919 to 1939 and 16% earlier.

Leases, licences to alter and block rules in Old Street

Before anything is ordered for an Old Street flat, read the lease and ask the freeholder or managing agent for a licence to alter. A lease commonly requires consent for changes to walls, floors, wiring, plumbing and windows, and it may ask for carpet or an approved acoustic underlay wherever a hard floor is laid above another flat. We give the agent a method statement, drawings, a programme and a waste plan to support the request, and nothing is stripped out until the licence is signed.

Hours inside a block are set twice. Islington only allows noisy construction work from 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays unless it approves otherwise, and a block's own rules can start later, finish earlier or rule out weekend work. Inside an Old Street block the stricter rule wins. We book the lift, protect the common parts along the route to your door and bring materials up in small loads through the entrance the agent allows. Van bays outside need suspending at least 14 days ahead for most Islington bays.

Building control and fire safety inside an Old Street block

Work in an Old Street flat that needs building control approval goes to full plans with the council or to a registered building control approver. Islington rules out the building notice route for residential premises that have common areas, and the council has a statutory obligation to process full plans applications within five weeks, or two months if agreed. Items such as a new drainage run to a moved bathroom or an altered internal wall go that way, while the new consumer unit and wiring are certified by the registered electrician who installs them. We run the strip out and survey work while the application is checked.

Fire safety in a block is shared. The flat entrance door, the walls between flats and the fire stopping in the risers are generally matters for the freeholder or the building's responsible person, so work that touches them is agreed first and done to their specification. In a higher-risk building, meaning a tall residential block as the Building Safety Act defines it, building control for works is the Building Safety Regulator rather than the council, and your managing agent will know whether your Old Street block is one. Every hole we make through a compartment wall is fire stopped.

Letting an Old Street flat after a refurbishment

A let flat in Old Street has to come out of the refurbishment lettable under the energy rules. GOV.UK says that since 1 April 2018 private landlords may not let domestic properties on new tenancies with an EPC rating of F or G unless an exemption applies. Since 1 April 2020 the bar has applied to continuing lets as well. MEES is enforced by local authorities. In a flat the items that lift a rating are electric heating with modern controls, LED lighting, secondary or replacement glazing where the lease allows it, and insulation of any exposed wall or floor.

Licensing for a single household depends on the ward. Islington's current selective licensing scheme covers private rented homes let to 1 or 2 people or a single household in Finsbury Park, Hillrise and Tollington wards. Old Street lies outside those three wards, so a flat here let to one household falls outside that scheme. Letting to sharers is a different matter, covered on the HMO conversion page. For a buy-to-let between tenancies we fit the refurbishment into the void and hand over the electrical and gas certificates the letting agent asks for before the next tenant moves in.

• Secondary glazing inside windows the lease keeps with the freeholder
• Unvented cylinder replacement, notified to building control
• Condensation control with extract fans and trickle vents

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Old Street & St Luke's. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Next steps that tend to follow flat refurbishment in Old Street: bathroom renovation in Old Street, flat refurbishment across Islington, flat renovations in London, kitchen fitters in London for flats, flat refurbishment anywhere in London and Painting and Decorating Cost.

Why Choose GS Renovation in Old Street

In an Old Street block the refurbishment is shaped by people other than you: the freeholder, the managing agent, and the neighbours above, below and beside the flat. We visit, read the lease clauses that affect the work, and send the agent a method statement, programme and waste plan before the start. One site team runs the job from strip out to decoration inside the block's hours, a registered electrician certifies the new wiring and consumer unit, and you receive the certificates and sign-offs in one pack.

• Acoustic floor build-ups laid to the specification in your lease
• The lease and licence to alter read before a flat is quoted
• One point of contact from first survey to handover

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