What to expect before, during and after building work

The scope, itemised, so both sides are describing the same job. The start date and a realistic duration. How money is staged, which on anything longer than a couple of weeks should be against work actually completed and never a large sum up front. And how variations get handled: told, costed, agreed, then done.

Also the boring practical list, which prevents more arguments than any of the above: where the skip goes and who pays for a permit, which toilet the trades use, what time they start, where materials are stored, and whether anything needs telling the neighbours about before it happens rather than after.

Somebody who tells you what is happening this week and what is happening next. A site that is left safe and swept at the end of the day, because you still live there. Deliveries that arrive before they are needed rather than the morning they are. And when something is found, a conversation on the day rather than a line on an invoice six weeks later.

What it does not look like is constant progress. There are genuinely quiet stretches in any build, waiting for concrete to cure, for an inspection or for something to dry. The difference between a quiet stretch and a problem is whether anybody told you it was coming.

Decisions when they are asked for, because a job waiting on a choice is a job standing still and it is the most common cause of an overrun that gets blamed on the builder. Access as agreed. And raising something the day you notice it rather than saving it up.

Snagging is normal and is not a sign of bad work. Every job of any size has a list at the end. What matters is that it gets written down and worked through rather than argued about.

A walk round together, a snagging list written down, and the list closed out. Any paperwork that belongs to you handed over: structural calculations, certificates produced by whoever was registered to produce them, and anything the council issued.

Then give it a few weeks. New plaster shrinks, new timber moves and small cracks at junctions are normal rather than defects. A builder who expects that and says so up front is easier to deal with than one who is surprised by it.