New Home Project Preparation Checklist

Write down who will live in the home from the outset and who else stays regularly, so the brief describes your household rather than a general idea of a house.

A designer reading a room list has to guess at the people behind it. Naming the household, including regular visitors and anyone who may move in later, removes a lot of that guesswork.

Note which activities currently happen in shared space and which need a room that can be shut off, such as remote working, music practice or someone who sleeps at unusual hours.

Open layouts often look attractive in images and fail in use. Naming the activities that need a door is one of the most useful things an owner can supply early.

Record whether anyone in the household has mobility needs now or may in future, and raise it as a design question rather than assuming a particular layout will suit.

Decisions about levels, door widths and circulation are far easier to influence in the earliest drawings than once a building has been finished.

Do not settle accessibility arrangements from general guidance. Put the household situation to a qualified designer and confirm what applies locally.

Describe a typical weekday morning from waking to leaving the house, and note where the household would collide in the layout you are currently imagining.

Circulation problems show up in the busiest part of the day. A short written narrative exposes them before a plan is drawn.

Decide and record whether the household intends to stay long term or expects to move on, because that changes which compromises feel acceptable during design.

The same trade-off reads differently depending on this answer, and it is worth stating rather than leaving each family member to assume their own version.

List what you dislike about where you live now in plain, specific terms, since concrete irritations tell a designer far more than general aspirations do.

Naming the cold hallway, the door that blocks a cupboard or the room nobody uses gives a designer something to work against.

Walk the plot and note what is actually standing on it: outbuildings, hardstanding, retaining walls, fences and anything a previous owner left behind.

Clearing a site is rarely as simple as it looks from the gate, and an early written list prevents surprises being discovered by the people running the site.

Photograph every boundary from both ends and note what physically forms it, because a hedge, a post fence and a masonry wall raise different ownership questions.

Boundary features change over the years. Dated photographs taken before anything is moved are useful evidence for the professionals who later have to interpret the deeds.

Note whether the ground slopes and in which direction water appears to run after heavy rain, and treat these as observations to hand over rather than conclusions.

Owners are well placed to notice where water collects because they can visit repeatedly in different weather, which a single professional visit cannot.

Observations about water are useful evidence only. Drainage and ground behaviour must be assessed by a qualified engineer or specialist.

Write down everything visible above ground: covers, meter boxes, poles, overhead lines, stopcocks and marker posts, with a rough note of where each one sits.

This is often the first question a designer asks and the one owners are least prepared for, even though the evidence is standing in plain sight.

Record which neighbouring buildings look onto the plot and from which windows, because this frequently shapes where private outdoor space can realistically go.

Overlooking is easier to design around when it is noted at the start than to remedy once a house position has been fixed.

Ask the previous owner, the seller or long-standing neighbours what they know about the plot history, including earlier uses, filled ground or demolished structures.

Local memory often holds information no document records, and the question is worth putting while the people who remember are still willing to talk.

Anything you hear about former uses or made ground should be passed to a qualified professional to assess rather than acted on directly.

Put a written enquiry to each utility undertaking about what connection arrangements already exist for the plot, and note what they need from you before they can answer.

Enquiries of this kind are rarely answered on the spot, so starting them while the design is still fluid keeps your options open.

Note whether the plot has ever had a supply of any kind, since land that has never been built on can require arrangements an owner does not anticipate.

A plot with no history of supply is a different proposition from one where a house once stood, and it is worth flagging in the very first conversation.

Write down where foul drainage from the plot appears to go, and ask early what would be involved if no connection turns out to be available.

Drainage arrangements can move a house across a plot, so the question deserves to be asked before a preferred position becomes fixed in everyone's mind.

Whether a connection exists, and what any alternative would involve, is for a qualified engineer and the relevant undertaking to establish.

Ask who owns any pipes, cables or ducts that cross the plot, and whether anyone holds a right to come onto the land to reach them.

Rights of access for apparatus can restrict where a building sits just as firmly as a boundary does, and they are not always obvious on site.

Access rights held by others are not something to settle from what is visible on site. Raise them with the relevant undertaking and a suitably qualified adviser.

Record whether mobile signal and internet connectivity are usable while standing on the plot, since many owners discover the answer only after moving in.

If anyone in the household works from home, this belongs in the brief alongside the room list rather than being treated as a detail for later.

Note any shared or neighbouring service that runs along or under your access, and raise it before layout decisions harden around that route.

Shared arrangements are usually informal and undocumented, and they surface at the least convenient moment if nobody asks about them early.

Stand at the entrance and note how a large delivery vehicle would turn in and out, because access constraints often shape both what is built and how it is built.

Sites with awkward access are built differently, and the people you appoint will want to know about it before they commit to an approach.

Write down who owns the road or track serving the plot and whether anyone maintains its surface, and gather any paperwork about that arrangement.

Private and shared accesses come with obligations that only appear in writing, and they are worth understanding before heavy traffic starts using them.

Note where materials could be stored and where excavated spoil could sit without blocking the access or spilling over a neighbour's boundary.

Plots that look generous can lose most of their usable area once a working site is set out, and this is easier to think about now than later.

Ask whether a temporary access or a crossing over a verge or footway would be needed, and who would be responsible for applying for permission to form it.

Ownership of this task is often assumed by everybody and held by nobody, which is exactly how it gets forgotten.

Anything affecting a public road or footway must be confirmed with the relevant local authority, who alone can say what is required.

Record any narrow turn, low bridge, weight restriction or overhanging tree on the approach route, describing each in words rather than trying to measure it.

A written description of the approach is genuinely useful to the people you ask to take on the work, and it is something only someone local can supply.

Consider whether neighbours share the access, and write down what has been agreed informally in the past and who agreed it.

Informal arrangements tend to hold until a lorry arrives. Writing them down early gives everyone a chance to confirm them properly.

Confirm with your local authority which consents and permissions apply to building on your plot, and write down who told you, when, and in what terms.

Requirements vary by location and by plot. A dated note of who said what is worth more later than a general understanding you cannot trace.

Treat only the local authority as the source on this. Nothing on this page determines what permissions your project needs.

Ask which applications your designer would normally prepare and which remain the owner's responsibility, and record the split before anyone assumes it.

Different practices divide this differently, so the answer belongs in your notes rather than in your expectations.

Find out whether the plot carries any designation, restriction or condition left over from an earlier decision, and treat anything you hear as something to check.

Conditions attached to an old decision can still be live, and they occasionally control matters an owner would never think to ask about.

A seller's or neighbour's recollection is not a source for this. Designations and conditions attaching to a plot can be confirmed only by the local authority.

Record any covenant, easement or private agreement noted in the title documents that might affect what is built, and take it to a suitably qualified adviser.

Private restrictions sit outside the public process entirely, so they are easy to miss and awkward to discover once work has started.

Interpreting title documents is a legal matter. Put anything you find to a qualified adviser rather than reading it yourself.

Ask who is responsible for notifying or agreeing with neighbouring owners about work near a shared boundary, and record the answer in writing.

Neighbour matters run to their own rhythm, and finding out who handles them early keeps them from becoming an obstacle at the worst point.

Obligations towards neighbouring owners vary by location and by circumstance. Confirm what applies with a suitably qualified adviser.

Ask what typically happens to a project like yours if an application is refused or heavily altered, and note the answer before design work advances far.

Having thought about this in advance makes the conversation calmer if it ever happens, and it shapes how much is worth committing early.

Write down which professional you expect to lead the project, and ask each person you meet what they are taking responsibility for and what they are not.

Owners often assume one appointment covers everything. Asking directly, and recording the answer, is the simplest way to find the gaps.

Ask each professional what information they need from you before they can begin, and gather it in advance rather than waiting to be chased for it.

Delays at the start of a project are very often waiting on the owner, and the requests are usually predictable.

Record who your single point of contact will be once several parties are involved, since messages sent to the wrong person quietly disappear.

As soon as more than two parties are talking, information routing becomes a real risk, and agreeing it early is far easier than fixing it later.

Ask how drawings, revisions and instructions will be issued and stored, and agree in writing where the current version of anything is to be found.

Building from an out-of-date drawing is an ordinary mistake with serious consequences, and it usually starts with an unclear filing arrangement.

Consider whether you want the same party designing and building, and write down what you understand you would gain and give up under each arrangement.

There is no universally better answer here, but stating your reasoning means you can revisit it deliberately rather than drifting.

Note what you would like each professional to bring to a first meeting, so the meeting is spent on your project rather than on collecting basics.

A short agenda sent in advance changes the quality of a first conversation more than almost anything else an owner can do.

Decide and record where the household will live while the site is active, and write down what would happen if that arrangement had to end unexpectedly.

A fallback that exists only in someone's head tends not to exist at all, and this is one of the few genuinely owner-side decisions in the whole project.

Note what has to go into storage, and whether anything is too large, too heavy or too fragile to be moved more than once.

Items that need special handling are worth identifying now, because they occasionally influence access and openings in the new home.

Write down which possessions, appliances or pieces of furniture are definitely coming with you, since these constrain layouts more often than owners expect.

Naming these items now means a layout can be tested against them, rather than the items being tested against a layout that is already settled.

Consider whether pets, home working or school runs make site noise and traffic a practical problem for the household, and raise it early with the people involved.

Constraints of this kind are far easier to work around when they are known at the start than when they surface as complaints during the work.

Ask what access you as the owner would have to the site while work is going on, and who to speak to before walking onto it.

Owners naturally want to see progress, and the arrangements for that are better agreed in advance than negotiated at the gate.

Site safety and access sit with whoever is running the site. Follow their arrangements rather than deciding your own.

Record what you would personally consider the point at which the home is usable, and ask how the people you appoint understand that same point.

These two understandings are often different, and comparing them early avoids a disagreement at the most sensitive stage of the project.