Flat Refurbishment St John's Wood

Refurbishing a flat is the everyday renovation job in St John's Wood. Nine in ten homes on the VOA list here are flats, in a stock of interwar mansion blocks, later flats and a few detached villas. That shapes the job more than anything else: a managing agent, a lease that controls what you can alter, neighbours above and below, and common parts, sometimes a lift, that every trade has to share. We plan the sequence around the block as well as the flat.

For St John's Wood, 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 St John's Wood: 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 a St John's Wood mansion flat hides behind the plaster

Expect original services and a solid structure that need testing before the design is fixed. In St John's Wood 31% of homes were built between 1919 and 1939, the period of the district's interwar mansion blocks. A mansion flat from those years can have steel-framed or solid concrete floors, cast iron soil stacks shared with the flats above, and wiring that has been extended rather than replaced over several decades, often behind later boxing.

Inside the flat, that fixes where a new kitchen or bathroom can drain, because the waste has to reach the shared stack at a workable fall. We open up a sample of ceilings, floors and risers early in the job so the electrician, plumber and plasterer price the real condition. Finding a shared stack or a steel beam in the wrong place is cheaper at week one than when the kitchen is on order.

Housing in St John's Wood

By the valuation list's count, St John's Wood holds about 8,840 homes, 10% houses and 90% flats; by age, 23% were built before 1919, 31% between the wars and 46% since 1945.

Licence to alter and the managing agent in St John's Wood blocks

The lease and the managing agent set the rules before Westminster does. A long lease in a St John's Wood block normally needs a licence to alter for work that touches structure, services, windows or floor coverings. The licence often names permitted working hours, protection of the common parts and a condition on floor sound insulation. We give the managing agent the method statement and programme they ask for, alongside your designer's drawings, so the licence is not held up by missing paperwork.

Hard floors are the usual flashpoint. Replacing carpet with timber or stone above another flat changes the impact noise reaching your neighbour, so the lease may require an acoustic underlay or a floating floor, and the managing agent may ask for a test. Deliveries go through the porter or concierge where there is one, and lift protection goes down before the first bag of plaster comes up. Bagged waste comes down in the lift or stair at agreed times, and the common hallway is cleaned at the end of each working day.

Building control for a flat refurbishment in St John's Wood

Which approval route applies depends on whether the layout changes. Westminster says a building notice can be used instead of full plans only where the work does not affect the layout of the building and is not affected by the Fire Safety Order. A like-for-like kitchen and bathroom in a St John's Wood flat may qualify for a building notice. Ask Westminster whether the Fire Safety Order point applies in your block. Westminster also has a fixed minor works charge for the fit out of a bathroom or kitchen in one property.

Moving walls, rooms or the entrance hall is different, because the hall is often the protected escape route out of the flat. The flat entrance door and the compartment walls around it matter to the whole block, and the freeholder or the responsible person for the building has duties over them. We leave that door and the separating walls as they are unless the freeholder has agreed the change, and full plans then carry the design to Westminster building control.

Refurbishing a let flat in St John's Wood before the next tenancy

Landlords refurbish to the energy and licensing rules first, then to taste. Since 1 April 2018 private landlords may not let domestic property on a new tenancy with an EPC rating of F or G. Since 1 April 2020 they cannot let or continue to let a property covered by the MEES Regulations below E without a valid exemption. In a St John's Wood mansion flat, the usual levers are the heating system, controls, lighting and draught-proofing, since the external walls belong to the block.

Westminster's Selective Licensing Scheme has been in effect since 24 November 2025 and requires privately rented property not already licensed as an HMO to hold a licence in 15 wards. Whether your flat is in one of those wards depends on the address, so check Westminster's published ward list before the refurbishment is priced. If a licence applies, any conditions it sets on the property's condition are what the works list should meet first.

• Bathroom and shower room renewal with pressure tested pipework
• Kitchen renewal within the flat footprint, drained to the shared stack
• Leak repairs, and making good after water has reached the flat below

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for St John's Wood North and St John's Wood South. Counts rounded by the VOA.

If this is your first project in St John's Wood, these are worth a look: bathroom renovation in St John's Wood, flat refurbishment across Westminster, flat renovations in London, renewing a bathroom inside a leasehold flat, flat refurbishment across London and Small Bathroom Ideas.

The GS Renovation Difference in St John's Wood

We work to a written programme that the managing agent can read, with the licence conditions, working hours and floor build-ups written into it. The same site lead runs the job from opening up to the snag list, so the neighbours and the porter deal with one person. A registered electrician certifies the new consumer unit and circuits, and an engineer on the Gas Safe Register handles any boiler work. Between tenancies, we programme the works to the date the next let begins.

• A written scope and programme agreed before work starts
• New pipework pressure tested so nothing leaks into the flat below
• Consumer unit and circuits certified by a registered electrician at completion

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