What actually happens, in order

Whether you are selling us a house or buying one from us, this is the sequence. There is nothing clever about it — the discipline is in refusing to do it out of order.

You tell us about it

Four questions on the website, or a phone call if you would rather. We are not looking for a polished description — the condition is the thing we care about, and the worse it is the more likely we are to be interested.

Under a minute. No address needed yet.

We come and look

One visit, one of us, no clipboard theatre. We are checking the things that decide whether a house works: the roof line, damp, movement, drainage, and whether the layout can be improved without fighting the structure.

Usually within a few days of your enquiry.

We make one offer and explain it

A single figure with the reasoning attached — what we think the work costs and why. We do not open low and negotiate up, and we do not reduce the offer later unless a survey genuinely turns up something new.

Take it away and think about it for as long as you like.

We survey properly before contracts

A structural survey, a damp survey and a drainage check. This is where we occasionally walk away, and we would rather do that now than discover the problem halfway through the job.

At our cost, not yours.

We complete on your timetable

Cash rather than a mortgage means nothing depends on a lender or on anyone else selling first. If you need longer to find somewhere, we will wait; if you need it done quickly, we can move.

Weeks rather than months.

Then the actual work starts

Roof, wiring, plumbing, insulation and drainage before a single tin of paint is opened. Original features restored rather than ripped out. Every stage signed off by building control, with the certificates handed to whoever buys it.

The part nobody photographs.

Where the money goes

The order matters more than the budget

Most renovations that go wrong were not underfunded. They spent the money in the wrong sequence.

First

Structure and weather

Roof, gutters, pointing, movement, drainage. Nothing else is worth doing until the house is dry and standing properly.

Second

Services

Full rewire, plumbing, heating. Cheap while the walls are open and ruinous once they are closed.

Third

Fabric and efficiency

Insulation and glazing. This is where a house stops being expensive to live in, and it is the part most renovations skip.

Last

The bit you can see

Kitchens, bathrooms, floors, decoration. Deliberately last, and paid for out of what is left rather than out of what should have gone into the fabric.

Start at stage one

Four questions about the house. That is the whole of stage one.