Your self build, with a quantity surveyor in your corner.
The money side should have someone too, and that someone should answer to nobody but you: a quantity surveyor who prices building work for a living, sells no products, takes no commissions, and acts only for you. From the first budget to the settled final account, everything on this service is one job - keeping what you pay level with what you get.
Stages of work
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The four stages of the work
The work is organised the way a build actually happens. Start wherever your build is today - nothing earlier is a prerequisite.
Free downloads are built for these services and their stages: from counting the whole cost of the build to closing the final account and its snag list. Each lives on its own page with its instructions; every stage hub links the ones its work leans on.
About these services
Why a quantity surveyor, and why yours
A quantity surveyor is the construction industry's money professional: measuring work, pricing it, and checking what gets paid for it. Every sizeable project has one - a developer would not dream of building without one - and your builder negotiates against the profession every working week. This service gives you the same money-side protection the industry has always given itself.
Acting only for you matters more than it sounds. Your builder is not dishonest for wanting the account to land high; that is their side of the table. Your designer wants the design built. I hold the other seat: nobody pays me but you, so the advice has no reason to lean anywhere but your way.
And there is nothing to sell you at the end of it. No kitchens, no kit houses, no builder recommendations traded for introductions, no commissions from anyone - a fee agreed in writing, and advice that is worth exactly what it says.
The flagship
The flagship service is Commercial Management: the whole money side of the build run for you, month by month, from the first payment to the settled final account, while you build the house.
Commercial Consultation
Commercial Consultation answers the one thing worrying you right now - at whatever stage it arrives, as often as you need it. A stage walked through on your own paperwork is one session, booked for exactly that. It commits you to nothing further, and if you do carry on, a session's fee is credited against any self-build service taken within 90 days. The fee is credited once, against one invoice, and credits are never stacked.
What I am not
Three boundaries, stated plainly because they are asked often. I am not an architect - the design side of your build belongs to your designer, and nothing here replaces them. I am not a solicitor - what you get is commercial and contractual opinion, never legal advice, and where wording needs legal force I say so. And on delay, I deal in costs, not culpability: what lost time does to the account, not the forensic case about whose fault it was. Each boundary has its own page.
Where this sits with the rest of the practice
If your project is a business, not a home.
The working side of the practice serves the industry - tradesmen, subcontractors, main contractors and clients - on live projects, from payment applications to final accounts. If you are building to sell or to let, start there.
Quantity SurveyingIf a build has already gone badly wrong.
Where a building project has hardened into a dispute, the claims side of the practice builds and argues the money case. If that is where your build is, start with a conversation and I will say honestly whether it is claims work or close-out work.
Claims & DisputesIf the commercial system needs fixing.
Commercial Systems Review examines repetitive work and weak records in the commercial cycle before recommending changes.
Commercial Systems Review