Flat Refurbishment Soho

Refurbishing a home in Soho almost always means one flat inside a shared building: the VOA counts 98% of homes across Fitzrovia West and Soho as flats. Each job runs inside someone else's rules, from the lease and the freeholder's licence to alter, usually run by the managing agent, to the block's working hours, lift bookings and floor finishes. We strip out, renew the services, kitchen and bathroom inside your flat and finish it to let, sell or live in, without upsetting the neighbours above and below.

For Soho, 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 Soho: 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.

Period conversions and new blocks: two kinds of Soho flat

The age of the building sets the work before any finish is chosen. Across the VOA's Fitzrovia West and Soho area, 48% of homes were built before 1919. A period building of that age can mean solid brick walls, timber floors, lath and plaster ceilings, and wiring and pipework that have been patched rather than replaced. In an upper floor flat above a shop, that fabric is shared with the floors around it, so any opening up is agreed with the freeholder first. If the building is listed, listed building consent covers internal works such as removing old plaster or joinery.

At the other end, 27% of homes in that area date from 2000 or later. Their fabric is newer, and the refurbishment is more often kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, lighting and decoration. The risk there is different: concealed services in screeds and boxing, and specifications set by the building's management company. We ask for the as-built drawings and the building rules first, because they decide where you can drill, chase and run new pipework.

Housing in Soho

Count the homes in the Fitzrovia West & Soho statistical area and you get about 6,840: 47% built since 1945, 5% between the wars and 48% before 1919, with flats at 98% and houses at 2%.

Leases, licences to alter and building control for a Soho flat

In a Soho block the lease comes before the drawings. Anything beyond decoration, such as moving a kitchen, replacing a floor or renewing the consumer unit, usually needs the freeholder's licence to alter, and the managing agent will want your designer's drawings, plus our method statement and programme, before granting it. Westminster says a building notice can stand in for full plans only where the work does not affect the layout and is not affected by the Fire Safety Order (RRO), which covers the common parts.

Westminster also says painting and decorating are not notifiable works and should be left out of the estimated cost of works it charges on. We split our quote the same way, with notifiable items such as rewiring, drainage and ventilation shown apart from decoration. You then have the figure the application form asks for, and the Soho flat's building control fee is set against the right cost of work rather than the whole contract sum.

Refurbishing a rented Soho flat to the letting rules

A landlord refurbishment in Soho has two rulebooks behind it. Since 1 April 2020 a property covered by the MEES Regulations cannot be let, or continue to be let, with an EPC rating below E without a valid exemption. Westminster's Selective Licensing Scheme, in effect since 24 November 2025, also requires privately rented properties not already licensed as HMOs to hold a licence in 15 wards, so check whether your flat's ward is one of them.

For the build, that means the scope should include whatever lifts the EPC in a flat: secondary glazing where replacement windows are not allowed, a modern boiler or efficient electric heating, better controls and low energy lighting. If a licence inspection has raised items, send us the list and we price each one as a separate line, so you can show the licensing team what was done and when, before the Soho tenancy starts.

Floors, leaks and fire doors in a shared Soho building

Three things cause trouble between neighbours in a shared Soho building, and each is settled before work starts. Hard floors carry footfall noise to the flat below, so where the lease asks for it we lay an acoustic underlay or a resilient batten system under new timber or tiles. Bathrooms and kitchens get new isolating valves, tanked shower areas and a tested waste run, because a leak into the flat beneath is the quickest way to lose a neighbour's goodwill.

The flat entrance door and the fire separation between your flat and the common stair are usually the freeholder's or the responsible person's concern, not only yours. We do not replace or alter them without that person's written agreement. Inside the Soho flat, a new consumer unit and rewire are certified by a registered electrician, and any gas boiler is fitted and commissioned by an engineer on the Gas Safe Register, with both certificates handed over at the end.

• Flat entrance door replaced as a certified fire door set, with the freeholder's written agreement
• Full and basic flat refurbishments within the existing layout
• Hard floors, carpet and vinyl laid over a level, sound base

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for the Fitzrovia West & Soho statistical area, which also covers west Fitzrovia. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Once the flat refurbishment work in Soho is scoped, people usually go on to read bathroom renovation in Soho, flat refurbishment across Westminster, flat renovations in London, fitting a new kitchen inside the flat footprint, our London flat refurbishment page and Wet Room Guide.

Why Soho Homeowners Choose GS Renovation

A flat refurbishment involves a managing agent, neighbours above and below, a shared stair and a street with little room to work, so the programme has to be agreed before the first day. We give you a written schedule split into strip out, first fix, finishes and snagging, with the noisy days marked, and send the managing agent the documents a licence to alter asks for. One contact runs the trades throughout and protects the common parts.

• New pipework pressure tested so nothing leaks into the flat below
• Clean, tidy and reliable tradespeople
• Common parts protected, photographed and handed back as we found them

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