Not necessarily, often it is a more cost-efficient way to build. A traditional building contractor naturally needs to make a profit. Whilst profit levels vary, a target profit margin of some 20% is about the norm. Furthermore, any contractor whose annual turnover exceeds around £90,000 will be VAT-registered and thus must charge VAT on the total cost of the job.

What this effectively means is that, say by way of example your final invoice for the project is £120,000. If you assume that 20% of this is the builder’s profit and a further 20% is VAT, although you pay the £120,000 you will only have had around £80,000 worth of actual work done.

Foley Allan know and have used very many skilled and highly qualified tradesmen over a period of many years, few of whom are VAT-registered. They have also negotiated good rates for them. Where they are used on your project, and labour does represent a very significant part of the overall build costs, no VAT would be payable.

Naturally you will pay VAT where it is due, on materials for example, but again these will be sourced at competitive rates and supplied with all original receipts at cost.

Basically you will only pay what things actually cost, any profit is waived in lieu of a fee.

This arrangement is known as ‘Net Cost Plus Fee’.

After providing a budget, once appointed, we also issue a week-by-week time-line in plain English, not an incomprehensible gantt chart. We review this time-line with you at regular meetings, often weekly. This is designed to highlight what is being done, by whom, and when. This way, if there have been any changes that might affect the budget or the length of the project, they can be identified promptly, discussed with you, and any implications with respect to cost and timescales can be understood by everyone in real time and as the project progresses. This naturally gives our clients the opportunity to be fully involved and understand the impacts of any changes and, crucially, avoid any surprises.

In addition, our clients are issued each week with a detailed and itemised cost update. This identifies what has been spent and what it has been spent on. In this way the entire process is transparent and clients are never expected to pay for anything in advance of works actually being done. These expense updates are added to each week until the project is complete. Clients therefore have a high level of cost control because they can see what they are spending each week and where it has gone.