Hattie

That comparison is helpful, thank you! Even with access costs, the prices still seem outrageous. Hey F 1 and 2 - It was included in our floorplan space, seems to be the norm for London estate agents. But yes, technically it wasn't a permanent structure but we are now making it into one. 3 - No flood protection measures are included in the costs. It's not on a flood plane, but was due to 3 months of rain in 1hr back in July 2021! 4 - I hope not but I will cross that bridge when we come to it! 5 - Yep this is what we're trying to work through now, it's very complicated. Even though I'm not paying for the insurance parts, I still want to haggle the overall quote down as much as possible as I just detest knowing that we're being had off, especially if it's going to impact our building insurance rate in the future. We have spoken to the insurance company and they said building costs in London are the worst they've ever been and in some cases they are extending people's temporary accommodation for another year to wait for costs to (hopefully) come down! I I just wish we could've got these quotes without the contractors knowing it was an insurance job. However, this was impossible due to the tender process we had to follow.

My thoughts exactly... I'm from the north west and I could buy multiple houses back home for that!

We're working through the cost split with the insurance company at the moment. Essentially, they will pay to put everything back how it was. Anything to do with the layout change or extension, we have to pay for. If I had to guess based on the quotes we've seen so far, it'll roughly be a 50/50 split but because these quotes are so outrageous, I don't know how accurate that is!

Hi all - I'm hoping to get some advice on the below! We are currently in the process of renovating our 1 bed basement flat in London (zone 2). We have received planning approval to remove the old conservatory at the back of the house and replace it with a flat roof structure which will house the kitchen. This involves altering the internal layout of the flat as shown in the floorplans. The footprint of the house is staying exactly the same, it is 600sqft for reference. To complicate matters, our flat flooded during the flash flooding in London last summer so it has currently been stripped back to brick as part of the insurance repair works and drying out process. The flat is now completely dried out and we have put the job out to tender. We have just received quotes from builders to put the flat back together as per the proposed plans. When we received the quotes, I literally fell off my chair. The three quotes were: £270k, £353k and £403k. I am honestly in a state of shock. I'm fully aware that London building costs are unlike anywhere else in the country and that the cost of raw materials has shot up this year, however, these are on another level. I could buy another flat for that last quote! All 3 builders that quoted were aware of the fact that part of this work will be covered by our insurance claim. However, the majority of it won't be i.e. the removal of the conservatory, the change of layout etc. Am I being totally ripped off because they are aware it's an insurance job? I can't understand how someone can physically spend that much money on a 600sqft flat when the footprint of the house isn't changing and we aren't building any new walls! Unless I was coating every ceiling in gold leaf! Any advice would be much appreciated!