Almost every building dispute we have ever heard about starts in the same place: a quotation that was too short. Not dishonest, necessarily. Just vague enough that the customer and the builder walked away with two different jobs in their heads.

You cannot control how somebody writes their quote. You can absolutely control which one you accept.

What should be written down

The scope, in plain terms

What is being built, altered or removed, room by room or element by element. "Refurbish kitchen" is not a scope. "Remove existing units and floor covering, form new opening to dining room with steel to engineer's detail, first and second fix, plaster, supply and fit customer's units" is.

The specification

Which materials, to what standard. Where the choice is yours, the quote should say so and carry an allowance rather than quietly assuming the cheapest option.

What is excluded

This is the most useful paragraph in any quotation and the one most often missing. Decorating, floor coverings, appliances, skip hire, scaffolding, temporary accommodation, making good to neighbouring surfaces — every one of those is a common late surprise.

Provisional sums, labelled as such

Some things genuinely cannot be priced until a floor comes up or a wall opens. That is fine and normal. What is not fine is burying it. A provisional sum should be named, given a figure, and explained.

The programme

An expected start date and duration. Estimates are legitimate — weather and suppliers do not read schedules — but "a few weeks" is not a programme.

Payment stages

Tied to work completed, not to dates in a calendar. A large payment before anyone has been on site is worth questioning.

How variations get handled

The single most valuable clause in the document. If you change your mind, or the building springs a surprise, what is the process? The answer should be: priced in writing, agreed before it is carried out.

If a change can be made without a written price, it can also be charged for without one.

Reading three quotes that do not match

Rarely will three builders price identical scopes, which makes straight comparison difficult. Try this instead.

1. Line the scopes up first, not the prices. Note what each includes that the others do not.
2. Find the gaps. Something in the cheapest quote is usually missing rather than cheaper.
3. Check the exclusions against your own expectations. Were you assuming decoration was included?
4. Look at the provisional sums. A quote with none, on a job with genuine unknowns, is optimistic.
5. Only then compare the totals. By this point they usually make far more sense.

Questions worth asking out loud

• Who is actually on site day to day, and who is my point of contact?
• Which parts are subcontracted?
• What happens if you open something up and find a problem?
• How is the site left at the end of each day?
• Do you handle the building-control side, and is that in the price?
• What is covered by your guarantee, and for how long?

None of these are awkward questions. A builder who is comfortable with their own pricing will answer all six without hesitating.

Why the detailed quote is usually the cheaper one

It sounds backwards, but a quotation that takes the trouble to itemise is normally the one that ends up costing less. Everything has been thought about and priced once, rather than discovered halfway through and priced under pressure — when you have no leverage and a house full of scaffolding.

The cheapest quote and the lowest final bill are very rarely the same piece of paper.

Ask us for the itemised version

Whatever you end up deciding, ask for the detail. If a builder will not put the scope in writing, that tells you something before a single brick moves.

Send us your plans, drawings or simply photographs and a description of what you want to achieve, and you will get a written, itemised quotation setting out scope, specification and exclusions — something you can genuinely hold up against every other price you have been given.