Property Repairs London — Structural, Damp & General Building Repairs

Yes. We repair water-damaged plasterboard, ceilings, walls and finishes after the source of damp or leakage has been resolved, replacing anything that's too saturated or weakened to save rather than skimming over it.

Yes. We can help with focused repair jobs as well as larger refurbishment and reinstatement projects, and we won't push a small job into a bigger scope than it needs.

We prioritise scoping urgent defects fast, particularly for landlords and agents dealing with an active issue such as a leak or a safety-related crack. Get in touch with details and photos and we'll assess how soon we can attend, and where the situation genuinely can't wait, we'll aim to look at it before booking in less urgent work already in the diary.

Yes. If we uncover a wider issue, such as damp tracking further than expected or a substrate that needs full replacement, we'll explain what we've found and reprice before continuing, and the work can roll into a fuller refurbishment if that makes more sense.

Yes. We regularly repair properties on behalf of managing agents and landlords, including clearing schedules of defects before a new tenancy or a sale.

It depends on the surface and how well the surrounding finish has aged. Plaster and paint can usually be blended in so a repair isn't obvious once decorated, but on external render, brickwork or older tiling, a perfect colour and texture match isn't always possible, particularly where the surrounding material has weathered unevenly and faded differently over many years of exposure. We'll tell you honestly before starting if we think a repair is likely to be visible, rather than promising a flawless result we can't be certain of, so you can decide whether that's acceptable or whether a wider area needs treating for a more even finish. Internal plaster repairs are generally the most forgiving, since paint covers a multitude of small variations once it's dry, while natural materials like reclaimed brick, stone or old handmade roof tiles are the hardest to match exactly because the originals have weathered and faded over decades in a way new material simply hasn't yet.

Yes, we can provide photos of the defect before and after repair, which is useful for insurance claims, landlord records or reporting back to a freeholder or managing agent. For anything requiring a formal engineer's report, such as a structural insurance claim, we'll coordinate with the relevant specialist, since that kind of report needs to come from someone qualified to give it rather than from the contractor carrying out the repair itself. Keeping a simple photo record as work progresses, not just before and after, is also useful if a dispute ever comes up later about what condition something was in or what exactly was done to fix it.

Most cracks are cosmetic or related to minor, normal movement such as seasonal expansion and contraction, and can be repaired without structural work. Some, particularly stepped cracks, cracks wider than a few millimetres, or cracks that run through brickwork rather than just plaster, need a closer look and sometimes a structural engineer's assessment before repair, since filling a genuinely structural crack without addressing the movement behind it is only ever a temporary fix. We'll flag which category a crack falls into before quoting the repair. A useful thing to note yourself in the meantime is whether the crack is still moving, a simple pencil mark or piece of tape across it will show whether it's widening over the following weeks, which is useful information for us or an engineer to have.

We price what we can see and assess at survey stage, and flag clearly where the true extent of an issue, such as how far damp has tracked behind a wall, might only become apparent once we start opening it up. If more is found once work begins, we stop, explain what we've found with photos, and agree a price for the additional work before continuing, rather than proceeding on the original figure and adjusting the invoice at the end without warning. This is particularly common with damp repairs, where the visible staining might only represent a fraction of how far moisture has actually tracked behind the surface, so we build a sensible checking point into jobs like this rather than assuming the first impression is the full picture. It's a similar story with timber decay behind old skirting or floorboards, where the surface can look sound while the wood underneath has softened, and we'd rather flag that possibility upfront than let it come as a surprise once the job is underway. Where timber decay is found, we'll also check whether it's simple wet rot from ongoing moisture, which usually stops once the source is fixed and the area dries out, or something that needs a wider look, since the two are treated quite differently.

Yes, this is a common request from both buyers and sellers. We can work through a survey report item by item, pricing each defect individually, so you know what each repair costs rather than paying for a vague lump sum. Turnaround before completion is often tight, so it's worth getting in touch as soon as the report is available rather than waiting until close to exchange, particularly if any item might need a specialist such as a structural engineer or damp surveyor involved before we can start. Where the report flags several minor items across the property, it's often more efficient and no more expensive to group them into a single visit than to treat each line of the report as a separate call-out. Buyers sometimes use survey findings to renegotiate price rather than insist on repairs before completion, in which case getting a firm, itemised quote from us gives you a genuine figure to work from in that conversation rather than a rough estimate from the survey document itself, which surveyors often deliberately price on the cautious side.