Budget & Cost Plan
Risk mitigationFixed FeeFor Self Builders10 working days
Your build costed properly before the design is frozen: a budget built from your drawings and your site rather than a square-metre rule of thumb, split into the packages you will actually buy, with a cashflow forecast and a contingency sized to your real risks. It is the number every later decision leans on.
The problem
Most self build budgets are one number somebody said out loud: a square-metre rate from a magazine, a friend's build from a few years ago, a figure the mortgage application needed. Then the design grows, the number stays, and the gap between them gets discovered on site, one invoice at a time. A budget that was never built from your actual drawings cannot hold your actual build - and by the time it fails, the expensive decisions, the design, the contract and the builder, have all been taken against it.
The solution
I take your drawings, your site and your specification and build the budget from them: measured quantities where the drawings allow, realistic current rates, and the packages you will actually buy - groundworks, structure, roof, windows, services, finishes - each priced separately so you can see where the money sits. On top of that, a cashflow forecast of when the money leaves, and a contingency - the slice of budget held back for the surprises - sized to your risks rather than a token percentage. And the sentence the whole document exists for: the plan total compared against the funding you have confirmed as available, with the headroom or the shortfall stated plainly, in pounds. Where the design has not settled, the budget says plainly what is measured and what is assumption. Fee fixed and quoted in writing before any work starts.
What you receive
A budget you can defend: built from your drawings, split into buying packages, with the cash mapped month by month, the contingency sized to your real risks, and a plain verdict on whether the build as drawn is affordable against the funding you confirmed. When quotes arrive they finally have something honest to be compared against, and when the design wants to grow, you can see what the growth costs before saying yes.
The Handover Pack accompanies the work with its dates and sources, likely outcomes and responses, scope boundaries and ready-to-send correspondence where needed.
Turnaround: ten working days.
The working days start when the agreed scope and required inputs are available. Optional items do not hold the start unless the agreed scope says otherwise.
How it works
You send the drawings and describe the site
Whatever stage the drawings are at, plus the plot: access, slopes, ground if known. As it stands, nothing tidied.
- A
Drawings and specification
EssentialWithout it: There is nothing for the plan to measure, so it cannot be produced.
Where to find it: Your architect or designer holds them; a forwarded email does it.
Why I need it: The only thing a cost plan can price
- B
Site facts
ImportantWithout it: The plan carries a stated allowance for the ground instead of a measured one, and the contingency covers what nobody has actually checked.
Where to find it: You know most of this already; the ground investigation, if one exists, fills in the rest.
Why I need it: Ground and services are where self-builds surprise
- C
Funds and their timing
EssentialWithout it: The cashflow cannot be built, and the plan cannot say whether the build is affordable.
Where to find it: You and your lender hold this; the mortgage offer's stage-release terms are the useful page.
Why I need it: The cashflow half is built against it
- D
Already committed
ImportantWithout it: The plan prices the whole build rather than what is actually left to spend.
Where to find it: Your bank statements or the invoices and orders already placed; list what has gone out or been signed for so far.
Why I need it: The plan prices what remains, honestly
- E
How the build is run, and the works type
EssentialWithout it: The plan prices a build shape that may not be yours, and the procurement and labour assumptions behind every rate go unstated
Where to find it: You know this already and it takes two minutes: who holds the contracts, one builder for the whole job or trades engaged separately or a kit company plus trades; who designed it; and whether anyone is administering the contract or certifying payments. Say if it has changed since you started
Why I need it: The route decides how many accounts run in parallel, what quotes and valuations are levelled onto, and which contract a change belongs in
- F
The build programme intended
EssentialWithout it: The cashflow cannot be built, so the months when the build needs money faster than it arrives stay invisible until they happen.
Where to find it: You or your designer hold this: the intended start date, the overall build duration, and roughly when each stage happens. A builder's or kit supplier's programme if one has been given to you.
Why I need it: The review spreads every element across it, and the pinch months come out of it
Copies are fine. Send what you have and I'll tell you what's missing. Download the client request PDF or editable Word version to pass to whoever holds the files.
- A
I measure and price what the drawings support
Quantities from the drawings, rates from the current market, packages split the way you will actually buy the work.
I build the cashflow and size the contingency
When the money leaves, month by month, and a contingency that reflects your specific unknowns rather than a round number.
I compare the total against your funding and say the truth
The plan total set against the money you have confirmed as available, in pounds: headroom or shortfall, stated plainly. Where it is short, the three biggest movable numbers come with it, each priced, so the conversation with your design team starts the same week.
Funding facts confirmed
No verdict on whether the build is affordable is given until your funding figures are confirmed by you in writing and every total recomputes.
You take the walk-through and test the number
A thirty-minute call, offered rather than required; the plan is written to stand without it. Line by line: what is measured, what is assumed, where the risk sits. You leave knowing the number and believing it, or knowing exactly why it must change.
I give your build its number
Free Service Pack
A step-by-step Handbook, with the templates and working documents you need to carry out the work it covers yourself. You supply your own project information and records.
Follow the Handbook's scope and stopping points, and obtain independent advice where required. The pack is not project-specific advice or independent sign-off.
My products used
Tips that raise your odds of success
Questions I get asked often
This is where the numbers start: with a real budget, the quotes have something to be compared against (Builder Quote Review & Comparison) and the contract sum has something to be tested against (Contract Selection & Review). The free Cashflow Forecast template pairs with it if you want to run the forecast yourself, and if the budget is worrying you before any of this, General Support is the quicker door.