BTC Builder

That's pretty much how it ended. What if I die? How will my wife do it was the quick summary. In the end they refused to look through the lense of doing it myself, it had to be through a project manager, paying a premium on everything. I've found another lender now who appears to be on board.

which is completely irrelevant to my original point which was that if I were to halve the size of the house by making it a bungalow, the roof would remain exactly the same and the "cost per sqm" would not halve.

I'm a builder, I've priced everything down to the last wall tie. No service connections are required, everything is already here. I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about RE roof. It's a trussed roof with no habital space in the loft. If I made the property a true bungalow, the roof would be exactly the same...

How much do you think concrete blocks, sand and cement, plasterboard, tiles, concrete, trusses and floor joist cost?

You have no idea what you're talking about.

it's worth north of £1,000,000 when finished.

my home won't meet the sap score required. I couldn't even get building regs without a heat pump. with 100mm cavity pir, insulated boards, areated blocks, heat pump and a roof full of panels, I still couldn't get the sap score for ecology

No idea, this only came about late Friday so we'll have to see what happens during the week.

That's all in, although there aren't any service connections required or any prelims required.

I'm 6 weeks into an application for a self build, tax returns checked and approved etc, and the qs check, if you can even call it that, has just completely messed it up. Labour costs are minimal, around £30k, as its going through the family business, it's materials only really. The total estimated build cost is £200k, £170k of which is materials. The broker (who I won't name but has been very helpful, no complaints) came back to me and said the qs has said estimated build cost is £400k-£700k based on their own cost per sqm. As far as I'm concerned, this is nonsense. That's the price an indulgent accountant or lawyer might pay a project manager to do the build for them. It's not the price i will be paying, not even close. I've been very clear about the minimal labour costs to the broker, but it seems the lender has just ignored them. I also find "cost per sqm" a very strange way of costing up. It's a two story property, so if I were to halve the size of it by making it a bungalow, the build cost would not halve as the foundations, roof, and floor slab are the same regardless. Conversely, going from bungalow to two story does not suddenly double the cost. Are there any lenders who actually look at your costings (or will price it accurately themselves) rather than just doing a basic cost per sqm?

When I said 165 sqm, that's the ground floor space for the underfloor heating, then there's the upstairs which is the same size with another 4 radiators and 4 bathrooms radiators. I'm assuming the smallest heat pump will not suffice but am happy to be proven wrong.

That's perhaps a bit optimistic, especially as I don't want the cheapest, nastiest ashp, and I'll need a 200l cylinder. Having just had a look at screwfix though I was pleasantly surprised by the prices, maybe it will come in under £10k all in.

£10k was a number I put in for easy maths, but if someone were to offer me a heat pump, tank and underfloor heating system suitable for 165 sqm for £10k then I'd take their hand off.

Thanks everyone for the help. I guess I need to be more assertive when saying it's 0% vat. I should point out that the guys who have been round were probably only in their mid twenties, new in business and didn't really understand. I don't understand it myself fully, hence why I offered to buy everything myself. But using my sums earlier, if someone buys £10k + VAT worth of kit and then passes it on to me for £10k, they then have to find the extra £2k VAT in the interim until the claim it back I guess I need an established tradesmen who's done this before and isn't penny pinching to the point where they can't make up the short term VAT

So is it normal for a plumber to buy a heat pump for £10k + vat and then pass it on to the customer for 10k and pay out the 2k vat themselves, to claim it back themselves whenever they do their next return? Am I missing something here? I've had two plumbers round and both seemed very perturbed about the idea of zero vat and were saying things along the lines of "oh well we do vat returns every few months so can sort you out shortly after we've done the work" which doesnt sound right and a bit of an accident waiting to happen.