Flat Refurbishment Architects in London

A flat refurbishment is two projects at once. The design challenge is usually to win light, storage and a better sense of flow from a fixed footprint — opening up living space, reworking a kitchen or bathroom, and improving circulation. The consent challenge is the lease: most significant alterations need the freeholder’s permission through a Licence to Alter, supported by drawings. We run the two in step, so the scheme you fall in love with is also one the freeholder will approve and building control will pass.

Flats play by different rules from houses. There are no permitted development rights, so external changes generally need planning permission, while most internal, non-structural alterations do not — but the lease almost always does control them. Crucially, you typically do not own the structure or the external walls of the building, only the space demised to you, so removing or altering structure is rarely something you can simply decide to do. We read the lease and the building alongside the design, so what we propose is actually within your rights to carry out.

For anything beyond cosmetic work, the freeholder’s formal consent — a Licence to Alter — is the gateway, and it runs to its own process and timetable. The freeholder, often through a managing agent and a surveyor, reviews the proposal on the strength of the drawings and specification provided; a vague submission invites questions, conditions and delay. We prepare a clear consent pack designed around what a freeholder’s surveyor looks for, align it with any planning required for external works, and present it so the decision is straightforward — though the freeholder’s timescale ultimately sits outside our control.

The issues that cause the worst leasehold disputes nearly all involve the flat below. Floors have to manage both impact and airborne sound under Approved Document E, and leases frequently require that acoustic performance is not worsened — or is improved — when floors come up. Moving a bathroom or kitchen so that a wet area sits over a neighbour’s living space raises both noise and the risk of a leak, which is why those rooms are kept in sensible positions and tanked properly. We design the floor build-ups, acoustic isolation and waterproofing deliberately, because these are exactly the points a freeholder and a neighbour will scrutinise.

A flat refurbishment still has to satisfy building control. Fire safety in flats is taken seriously — protected escape through the flat and the common parts, fire-rated doors and proper fire-stopping under Approved Document B. Any structural alteration needs a structural engineer’s design and the freeholder’s consent, and where it affects a wall shared with a neighbouring flat the Party Wall etc. Act can apply. We prepare the building regulations package for construction and the Licence to Alter drawings for the freeholder as one coordinated set, and work alongside surveying specialists where party wall or wider leasehold advice is needed.