Where we work
High-end and prime residential
Specification driven cost, low tolerance for drift
Prime residential does not behave like the rest of the market. Specification is set by a client rather than by a market rate, materials are often single source with long lead times, and design change continues well past the point where a normal scheme would have frozen it. We provide independent quantity surveying services on prime and super prime residential projects across the UK.
The starting position
Nobody is buying the average, so nobody can price it
A volume residential scheme is priced against a market. Enough comparable buildings exist that a rate per square metre carries real information, and the specification sits inside a band that most contractors have built before.
Prime residential sits outside that band by definition. The client is buying something that is not standard, which is the entire point of the project, and the specification is a series of individual decisions rather than a level. Two schemes of identical area on the same street can differ by a factor that no benchmark will predict, because one has stone and joinery the other does not.
The consequence is that the usual early stage tools stop working. A cost plan produced from a rate is not conservative here, it is simply uninformed, and it tends to be wrong in the direction that hurts. Everything has to be built from measurement and from real supplier information, item by item, from the first budget onwards.
The problem, and what we do about it
Four ways a prime scheme runs away from its budget
None of these are avoidable by being more careful with a spreadsheet. Each is a structural feature of how prime residential is designed, procured and built, and each has a specific commercial answer.
Benchmarks carry no information
A rate per square metre from a previous prime scheme describes that client's taste, not yours. At this level the specification is the cost, and the specification is bespoke, so the comparison is between two things that are not comparable.
We price from measurement and from live supplier information rather than from a rate. Where a finish has not been chosen, we carry a named allowance with the assumed specification written next to it, so the client can see what their budget currently buys and decide whether that is what they want.
A budget that names what it assumesDesign change never actually stops
On a commercial scheme the design freezes because a funder or a programme forces it. By contrast, on a private scheme the client is spending their own money on their own house, and they keep making decisions well into the construction phase.
Every client instruction is priced before it is executed, including the programme consequence, and issued as a single page the client can approve or decline. That is a habit rather than a document, and it is the difference between a scheme that lands where the client expected and one that arrives at completion with a number nobody recognises.
No instruction executed before it is pricedSingle source items with long lead times
Stone from one quarry, joinery from one workshop, glass in sizes only a handful of fabricators make, sanitaryware on months of lead time. There is no second supplier to price against, and the order date is fixed by the programme rather than by the budget.
A procurement schedule carrying an order-by date for every long lead package, tracked as a cost line rather than as a programme note. Missing an order date on a single source item does not delay one trade, it moves the completion date, and the cost of that is usually larger than the item itself.
Order dates tracked as money, not as programmeTrade packages without a main contractor
Prime schemes are frequently built under construction management or with a large number of client-appointed specialists. That buys quality control and flexibility. It also removes the single point of responsibility for the gaps between packages.
Interfaces between packages are measured and allocated in the documents, so that each trade prices a scope with an edge to it. Where the route is construction management, the client is carrying risk a main contractor would otherwise hold, and that has to be understood and priced before the route is chosen rather than after.
Every gap between packages has an ownerMethod
How a prime cost plan is actually built
The document has to do two things at once. It has to give a total the client can commit to, and it has to show what each decision costs, because on a scheme like this the client is going to keep making decisions for another eighteen months.
Measure the shell, allow for the fit out
Structure, envelope and services are measurable early and behave predictably. Finishes are not, so they carry named allowances at a stated level rather than a single fit out rate covering everything.
Price the specification, not the area
Each significant finish is priced against a real product with a real supplier. Where the product is undecided, the allowance states what it currently buys, which turns an abstract number into a choice.
Separate what the client controls
Client decisions, client-supplied items and client-appointed specialists are shown as their own block. It is the part of the budget that moves most, and the client is the only person who can move it.
Reconcile every issue to the last
Each reissue explains what changed and why, so movement reads as a series of decisions somebody took rather than as a new number that appeared. On a scheme this long, that record is what keeps trust intact.
Where the money moves
Five things prime residential does that volume housing does not
01Samples, mock-ups and approvalQuality control that costs time as well as money
At this level a finish is approved from a physical sample or a built mock-up rather than from a specification clause. Sample panels for stone, brick, render and joinery each carry a cost, and more importantly each carries an approval period during which the trade cannot proceed.
Where the approval process is not written into the programme and the contract, it becomes a source of delay that nobody priced and that both parties feel entitled to blame on the other. Written in, it is a scheduled activity with a duration and an owner.
Rejection is the part usually left out. A sample declined at the third attempt has a cost, and the contract should say who carries it and on what basis.
02Prime locations bring their own constraintsParty walls, basements and access measured in metres
The addresses that carry prime values are usually the hardest to build on. Terraced or semi detached properties with party wall matters on both sides, conservation area consent, basement excavation under an existing building, and a street too narrow for a standing crane.
Each of those is a cost that has nothing to do with the specification and everything to do with the site. Basement works in particular sit alongside refurbishment as the item most likely to move materially once the ground is opened, which is why they are priced as their own risk line rather than absorbed into substructure.
03Client supplied items and free issueA saving that frequently is not one
Clients on prime schemes often buy items directly, from lighting and ironmongery through to whole kitchens. It looks like a saving because the contractor's mark up is removed. It moves several risks onto the client at the same time.
Delivery date, storage, damage in transit, incorrect specification, defective goods and the coordination of a trade waiting for an item that has not arrived. Where free issue is used, the contract has to say when the item will be available, who insures it, and what happens when it is late or wrong.
Priced properly, direct purchase is sometimes worth doing. Equally, priced as a straight deduction of the mark up, it usually is not.
04Construction management and trade contractsFlexibility bought with risk
Where quality and client control matter more than price certainty, construction management is a defensible route. The client contracts directly with each trade, the construction manager coordinates, and the design can keep developing while early packages are already on site.
What the client gives up is a single contract sum and a single party responsible for delivery. There is no main contractor absorbing the consequence of a package running late, because there is no main contractor. That risk does not disappear, it returns to the client, and it should be quantified before the route is chosen.
Where this route is used we report on committed cost against forecast outturn package by package, monthly, because the total is not fixed by a contract and the only way to hold it is to watch it.
05Change control with a client in the roomThe commercial discipline that protects the relationship
On a private scheme the client is personally involved, often visits the site, and frequently asks for things directly. That is entirely reasonable and it is how good buildings get made. It also produces instructions that never pass through a formal process.
A verbal request on site becomes work done, then becomes an item on a valuation, then becomes an argument about whether it was ever agreed. The answer is not to make the client fill in forms. It is to price every request quickly, in plain terms, and put it in front of them before the work starts.
Where that runs properly the final account holds no surprises, because the client approved each item on the day it arose and has the record to prove it.
Scope of an instruction
What we issue on a prime residential scheme
A full appointment covers all of the below. Many prime instructions begin with a single piece of it, usually a review of a budget that the client suspects is optimistic. Scope and the side we act for are confirmed in writing before anything begins.
Budgets built from measurement and live supplier information, never from a benchmark rate
Named allowances stating the specification each one currently buys
A procurement schedule with an order-by date for every long lead package
Trade package documentation with interfaces measured and allocated
Client instructions priced individually before the work is put in hand
Monthly reporting on committed cost against forecast outturn, package by package
Questions
Asked on prime residential
What does a prime scheme cost per square metre?
We do not publish a figure, because at this level the rate is an output rather than an input. The specification decides the number, and the specification is the client's. A budget produced from a rate would be a guess dressed as advice, and it would be wrong in the direction that causes the most damage.
Should we use a main contractor or construction management?
It depends on how much price certainty the client needs and how far the design has progressed. A main contractor gives a single contract sum and a single point of responsibility. Construction management gives control and lets early packages start before the design is complete, at the cost of both of those protections. The decision should follow the risk appetite, not the habit of the design team.
How do we keep control when the client keeps changing their mind?
By pricing each change before it is executed rather than collecting them for the final account. Clients on these schemes are rarely trying to avoid cost; they simply want to know what a decision costs before they take it. Given that information quickly, most people make sensible choices. Denied it, everybody ends up in the same argument at the end.
Is it worth buying finishes ourselves?
Sometimes, but the saving is smaller than it appears once storage, insurance, delivery risk and the cost of a trade standing waiting are counted. Where a client has a genuine buying advantage on a specific item, we price both routes and let the numbers decide, with the risks stated rather than implied.
When should you be appointed?
Before the specification is fixed, ideally at the point the client is deciding what the scheme is. The largest cost decisions on a prime project are taken in the first few weeks and are the cheapest to change then. An appointment after tender can still be useful, but it is managing a position rather than setting one.
Do you work on prime schemes outside London?
Yes. We work UK-wide, and the commercial questions on a prime country house are the same as on a prime townhouse, with a different set of site constraints. What changes is the supply chain, because the specialist trades on these schemes travel and their travel and accommodation costs are a real line rather than an afterthought.
Where to go next
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