A Holborn refurbishment is a reconfiguration inside a lease, not a rebuild of a house, and that framing changes everything that follows. The flat sits within a larger structure — a mansion block, a converted commercial building, an upper part above an active ground floor — and the walls, floors and ceilings you want to alter are frequently shared with a neighbour or owned by the freeholder rather than by you. Before a layout is fixed we read the lease and identify which elements are demised to the flat and which are common parts, because that boundary decides what can be moved freely, what needs the freeholder's consent, and what is simply off-limits. A structural wall between two flats, the underside of the floor slab, or a riser passing through the demise can all belong to the freeholder rather than to you, and the lease plan rarely spells that out cleanly.
The single document that governs most of these projects is the Licence to Alter. Almost every long lease requires the leaseholder to obtain the freeholder's written consent before making structural or material alterations, and often before moving services or wet rooms. The managing agent will usually want to see drawings, a method statement and evidence of competent design before granting it, and the licence can attach conditions on working hours, protection of common parts and reinstatement. We prepare the drawings the freeholder's surveyor needs to assess the scheme, and we sequence the licence so it runs alongside — not after — the technical design, because a licence sought late is the most common cause of a stalled Holborn refurbishment.
Acoustic separation is the technical heart of a flat refurbishment here. Reworking floors, ceilings and partitions between one leasehold and the next brings the separating construction into play, and building regulations set standards for airborne and impact sound between dwellings. A new hard floor over the flat below, a relocated bathroom sitting above a neighbour's bedroom, or a partition removed against a party structure all raise the question of what the existing construction achieves and what the new build-up must add. We design the floor and ceiling build-ups to hold that acoustic performance while respecting the finished-floor and ceiling heights the older building actually gives you, which are often tighter than a new-build equivalent. Where the existing separating floor is timber rather than concrete, the impact-sound question becomes harder still, and the build-up has to be resolved before thresholds, door heights and skirting details are set.
Older construction of uncertain history is the norm rather than the exception. Holborn's stock includes buildings that have been converted, subdivided and reserviced over decades, so what is behind a wall or under a floor is rarely what the current plan suggests. Structural walls may have been opened up informally, services may run through unexpected routes, and finishes can conceal earlier alterations. We survey the flat properly before design, opening up where necessary and recording the real structure, because a refurbishment priced and drawn against an assumed layout is the one that meets expensive surprises on site. Any structural opening is designed and calculated by a structural engineer and, where it touches a party structure, coordinated with the neighbours.
Services and risers are the constraint that quietly shapes the whole plan. Moving a kitchen or bathroom means connecting to the existing soil and waste stacks with workable falls, routing new supply and extract through risers that are shared with other flats and often already congested, and doing it all without cutting into structure or common parts you do not control. Heating, ventilation and electrical distribution have to thread through the same limited routes. We plan the wet rooms around where the drainage and risers actually are, rather than where a moodboard would put them, and we confirm early whether a proposed relocation can reach the stack at all — because in a mansion block that answer, not the aesthetics, decides the layout.
The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 applies between flats as much as between houses, and refurbishments frequently engage it. Cutting into or building off a party wall, altering a party structure such as the floor between your flat and the one below, or exposing a neighbour's wall all trigger notices that are separate from planning and from the Licence to Alter. In a densely occupied building the notifiable neighbours can be several, and their surveyors will want to agree the works before they start. We identify the party-structure issues early, so notices go out in good time and the programme is not held hostage to a late dispute. We do not promise approval or consent; we make the case properly and coordinate the parties who grant it.
