You are renovating an established villa, not finishing a new one, and what sits behind the existing walls is the part nobody has priced honestly.
In The Lakes the original services, wet-area construction and substrate condition move the figure more than any finish selection. This page sets out what we would establish about your villa before a figure exists: what the survey looks at, what the price is built from, which approvals apply to your address, and what is deliberately excluded.
Dubai villas and townhouses onlyWe work on villas and townhouses owned and occupied by the people who commission the work.
Written scope before priceThe existing condition, the requested work, and what is deliberately included and excluded — written down before a figure is attached to any of it.
Exclusions stated in writingWhat the price deliberately does not cover, visible before you commit rather than after.
How we work in The Lakes
Proof before promise
Surveyed before priced
We attend the property and record what is physically there before any figure is written down.
Scope defined in writing
Item by item, with inclusions, exclusions and assumptions stated on the face of the document.
Price basis you can inspect
Measured items, named allowances and stated provisional sums — never one absorbed rate.
Approvals identified per property
Which permissions apply to your exact address and who issues them.
Changes only in writing
Scope, cost and programme effect stated and accepted before the work is done.
Hidden work recorded
Waterproofing, first-fix services and substrates documented before they are covered.
No published project record yet
We publish no project count, client name, testimonial or review score, because none has yet passed our publication standard. Read the standard.
Services
What we take on in The Lakes
Owner-occupied villa and townhouse work. Scope is set per property, never per community.
Fit-out to a defined specification, with dimensions and interfaces written down.
This community
What renovating in The Lakes actually involves
It is an established community, and that defines the work — Renovation here almost always means working with what is already in place: existing service routes, original wet-area construction and substrates whose condition is not visible until something comes off. That is not a problem to be talked around — it is the actual job, and it is why we price unknowns as named provisional sums rather than absorbing them into a rate and recovering them later.
A master community, so there is a community approval route — The Lakes sits within a wider master-planned arrangement, which generally means a community route in addition to any authority permission. We confirm which applies to your exact villa before the programme is built, because in community-governed work the approval path is frequently the critical path.
Villas of a similar generation, with similar original systems — That makes the survey findings genuinely predictive of the cost. Original distribution capacity, drainage falls and waterproofing details are the items most likely to decide how much of the existing construction has to come out before new work can go in.
Low density, landscaped, and lived in — Access routes, material storage and waste removal have to be agreed with the community as well as with you, and protection of the landscaping and the parts of the house that are staying is part of the scope rather than goodwill.
Confirmed at survey
What we establish for your The Lakes property
Per property, never per community. A community-level assumption is the cheapest thing to make and the most expensive thing to get wrong.
Community and authority approval routes
Both confirmed for your exact villa and scope before the programme is built.
Original services condition
Distribution capacity, drainage routes and falls, and cooling capacity assessed against the proposed layout.
Original waterproofing and wet-area build-up
Established at survey, because it decides the extent of strip-out.
Substrate condition
Slabs, screeds, blockwork and plaster, since a finish is only as good as what it is fixed to.
Access, storage, waste and protection
Agreed with the community and written into the scope before mobilisation.
We read what you have sent, check the property type and the community against what we actually take on, and tell you plainly whether it is work we should be quoting for. An inquiry we should decline is declined here rather than three meetings later.
Site survey and existing-condition record
We attend the property and record what is physically there: service capacity and routes, wet-area construction, substrate condition, structural arrangement, access and waste routes, and whether the household stays in occupation. This record is the input to everything after it.
Findings and defined scope
What the survey found is written down, including the things that were not what anyone assumed. From that, the scope is defined item by item — what is being done, to what, and to what standard.
Price basis: inclusions, exclusions, assumptions
Each item is priced as a measured item, a named allowance or a stated provisional sum. Anything deliberately left out is written as an exclusion. Anything that cannot be known until something is opened up is written as an assumption rather than buried in a rate.
Approval path
We identify which permissions your specific property and scope require and who issues them — authority, master developer, community or utility — and build that route into the programme instead of discovering it during construction.
Mobilisation and protection
Work areas are separated from living areas, routes and finishes that are staying are protected, and the waste route, working hours and service-shutdown windows are agreed before the first tool comes out.
Controlled construction with written changes
Work proceeds against the agreed scope. Anything that departs from it becomes a written instruction stating the scope change, the cost effect and the programme effect, and it is carried out only once you have accepted it.
Hidden-work record
Waterproofing, first-fix services, substrates and anything else about to be concealed is recorded before it is covered, so that what is behind the finish is documented rather than remembered.
Snag list and clearance
We walk the completed work with you, write the snag list down, clear it item by item and record each item as closed rather than treating completion as a verbal agreement.
Handover and documentation
You receive the completion record for the work: the defined scope as built, the written changes, the hidden-work record and the cleared snag list.
Work and quality
The standard of work these pages describe
The images show the type of space and the site activity this service covers.
Evidence slot pending
No project record is published for The Lakes yet. When one is, it will carry the project code, the property type, the before condition and findings, the defined scope with inclusions and exclusions, the approvals, the price drivers and changes, the hidden-work and completion record, and exact written publication permission. Until then this slot stays visibly empty rather than being filled with an anonymous interior. Read the publication standard →
FAQs
Questions from The Lakes owners
Our villa is original — is that a problem?
It is the normal condition here, and it is why the survey exists. Original services, waterproofing and substrates are exactly the items we assess first, because their condition decides how much has to be removed before anything new can be installed.
What approvals will we need?
Typically a community route as well as any applicable authority route. We confirm which apply to your exact address and scope during planning and programme around them, rather than treating approval as a formality at the end.
Where do the materials come from?
Specified item by item in the scope document — named where you have selected them, carried as a stated allowance where the selection is open.
How do change orders work?
As a written instruction stating the scope, cost and programme effect, accepted before the work is done. In an established property this matters more than usual, because strip-out is where surprises live.
How long will it take?
A programme is issued for your specific scope once the survey is done and the approval route is confirmed. We do not publish a headline duration.
What happens on site?
Separation of work and living areas, protected routes, agreed waste route, notified and time-boxed service shutdowns, and a hidden-work record made before anything is concealed.
Why carry provisional sums rather than just quote a number?
Because a single number covering an unknown is either padded or wrong, and you cannot tell which. A named provisional sum tells you exactly what has been allowed for the unknown and what it will be reconciled against.
What happens after you write: we read what you sent and review it against the property type, the community and the work we actually take on. If it is not work we should be quoting for, we say so and that is the end of it. If it is, we come back with what a survey would need to establish and propose a date. No figure is issued before the survey.
Tell us where in The Lakes the property is, what you want the finished home to do, and whether the household stays in occupation. We will tell you whether it is work we should be quoting for and what a survey would need to establish.
