The five stages → Acquire
Taking a unit on
A unit is read before it is offered on, the reading is the same every time, and it is written down. The thing that sinks a refurbishment is almost never the thing that was obvious on the viewing.
Four documents, read together rather than in turn
The title register and title plan, the lease and the last three years of service charge accounts where the unit is leasehold, a level three survey, and the planning and building control history for the address. They are read together, because a survey calling for a new damp course means one thing on a freehold terrace and another on a third-floor flat where the freeholder has to consent before a party wall is touched.
The lease is read for the term left, the ground rent review pattern, who repairs what, and whether alterations need consent and in what form. A lease requiring a licence to alter for anything structural adds a stage in front of strip-out that no builder can shorten.
The survey is instructed at level three, not level two, on anything that will be stripped out. A level two survey describes condition. A level three opens up where it can and says why. The works list comes out of the level three report, and so does the order the works run in.
| Document | Comes from | What it settles |
|---|---|---|
| Title register and plan | Land Registry | boundaries, rights of way, charges and restrictions |
| Lease, with service charge accounts | freeholder or managing agent | term left, repairing obligations, consent to alter |
| Level three survey | the surveyor instructed | the works list, the order of works, what is opened up |
| Planning and building control history | the local authority register | what was done before, and whether it was signed off |
| Electrical condition report, where one exists | the seller | whether first fix is a rewire or an alteration |
Access is surveyed on the same visit
Access changes a programme more than anything else found on a first visit, and four questions are asked and answered in writing before a figure is put on the works.
- Where the skip stands
- On the public highway it needs a permit from the highway authority, and the permit date fixes the first day of strip-out rather than the other way round.
- Whether there is a side gate
- Without one, every bag of rubble comes out through the rooms that are going to be decorated, so strip-out and both first fixes finish everywhere before decoration starts anywhere.
- Stair width and the tightest turn
- Measured at the tightest point, not the widest. A bath, a boiler and a full sheet of plasterboard are checked against that measurement before any of them is ordered.
- Parking that can be suspended
- Booked with whatever notice the borough asks for. A delivery that cannot unload costs a day on two trades, not one.
- The lift, where there is one
- Its internal dimensions and its weight limit decide whether materials come up in one booked load or in twenty trips.
A unit with no skip standing and no side gate is not a worse unit. It is a longer one. Strip-out roughly doubles, the first fix trades lose part of every day to carrying, and the programme is written that way from the start instead of being patched when it slips.
The decision note that closes the stage
The stage ends with a one-page decision note on the file, dated. It records what was read, what was found, the works list the survey produced, the five access answers, and the figure the works were sized against.
The note earns its keep twice. When a trade prices a stage it is priced against the note, so a variation is visible as a variation rather than as a disagreement. And when the unit is eventually sold, the enquiry asking what was known at acquisition is answered from the note instead of from somebody remembering.
The order of works that comes out of this stage is set out on the schedule of works, and the dependencies that make a stage slip are on trades and sequencing.