The questions that come before a first message

It is an internal suitability review of your inquiry, followed — if it proceeds — by a site survey and a written scope. It is not automatic acceptance, not a quotation and not a project instruction.

The review looks at the property type, the community, the scope and our current capability. Some inquiries are declined, and being declined costs you nothing but the message you sent.

None of this is required, but it lets us give you a useful answer instead of a request for more information.

• The community, from the ten we work in.
• Villa or townhouse, and whether you own and occupy it.
• Which rooms or parts of the home the work concerns.
• The outcome you want, rather than a list of materials.
• Whether the household stays in the home during the works, and any date that genuinely constrains you.
• Anything already prepared — drawings, a scheme, earlier quotations or community correspondence.

Please do not send bank details, payment information or identity documents in a first message. No stage of a scope review requires them.

The price basis is the set of documents that make a total meaningful: measured items with quantities and rates, plus the assumptions, exclusions, allowances and provisional sums behind them.

Two contractors can quote the same figure for materially different work. The basis is what lets you see which one you are actually buying.

Assumption

Something the price takes for granted because the survey could not verify it — access, service capacity, substrate condition, working hours.

Exclusion

Something the price deliberately does not cover, stated before you commit rather than discovered later.

Allowance

A named budget held for a selection that has not been made yet, reconciled against the actual chosen item.

Provisional sum

Work whose extent cannot be established until something is opened up, stated as provisional rather than buried in a total.

A condition that differs from a written assumption, a change you request, a selection made later than planned, a lead time on an ordered item, or an approval that is delayed or refused.

Each of those becomes a written change stating its scope, cost and programme effect, and it proceeds only once accepted. Nothing is carried out on a verbal agreement.

That depends on the property, the community and the exact work. Some scopes require permission from a community or master developer, an authority, or a utility provider; some do not.

We identify the applicable path during Planning, name who must issue each permission, and write the dependency into the programme. We do not claim pre-existing approval status anywhere, and we do not claim a permission will be granted.

Frequently yes, and the phasing that makes it workable is written into the scope rather than agreed week by week.

• Work areas are physically separated from living areas, with protection to the routes trades use.
• Wet areas are sequenced so the household is not left without a usable bathroom at an unplanned moment.
• Service shutdowns are planned, notified in advance and kept to defined windows.
• Dust, noise and waste routes are agreed before mobilisation.

Phasing constraints change what the work costs, and that cost is priced openly.

Waterproofing and its testing, falls to drainage, first-fix electrical and plumbing routes, fixings and framing, and structural interfaces — all recorded while they are still visible.

Once a ceiling is boarded or a floor is laid, that work cannot be inspected without destroying the finish, so the record has to be made at the right moment or not at all. It is compiled into the completion evidence at handover.

Because neither has cleared its gate yet. A published project record needs all eight fields — project code, community and property type, customer objective, before condition and findings, scope with inclusions and exclusions, approvals and price drivers and changes, hidden-work and completion record, and exact written publication permission.

A published customer review needs four: the original source, a verified reviewer identity and relationship, a project-truth match, and exact written permission for the text, the identity and the placement.

Until then the slots stay dated and visibly empty. See Gallery & Evidence.