Quote Comparison Preparation Checklist

Write down, in your own words, the outcome you want from the work, and keep that description word for word identical in every enquiry you send out.

Small differences in how you describe the job produce large differences in what comes back, and you will not be able to tell later whether the gap was theirs or yours.

Note which parts of the property are in scope and which are explicitly not, since assumptions about an adjoining room or a landing are a frequent source of difference.

One professional will include the doorway into the next room and another will not, and neither is wrong if you never said.

List the items you intend to obtain yourself and the ones you expect the professional to obtain, and issue that list with the enquiry rather than mentioning it in conversation.

Owner-supplied items are the single most common reason two quotes for the same room differ, and the difference is often invisible in the totals.

Record which drawings, photographs or measurements you issued to each professional, and check that everyone received the same set rather than an evolving one.

It is easy to add a photograph for the second professional and forget the first, which quietly makes the responses non-comparable.

Decide and record whether you want the work quoted as one package or split into separately quoted stages, and say the same thing to everyone you approach.

A staged response and a whole-job response cannot be laid side by side, and asking for both from different people wastes everybody's effort.

Ask each professional what further information they would need from you to quote without qualifications, and write down exactly what each of them asked for.

The questions a professional asks before quoting often tell you more about how they work than the document that follows.

Note every line marked as an allowance, a provisional item or subject to survey, and keep those lines separate from the firm ones in your notes.

These are the parts of a quote designed to move, and a document with many of them is not comparable with one that has few.

Write down what each quote says about removing and disposing of waste from the property, including who arranges any container and where it would stand.

Disposal is routinely assumed by the owner and excluded by the document, and it is awkward to resolve once the work has begun.

Rules on skip placement, waste carriage and disposal vary by area and are confirmed with your local authority, not from a quote.

Check whether making good — the patching, filling and redecoration around finished work — is included, excluded or simply unmentioned in each document.

Making good is frequently quoted by nobody and expected of everyone, and it is the difference between a room you can use and one you cannot.

Note whether temporary protection of floors, stairs, furniture and shared entrances appears anywhere in the document, or only in the conversation you had.

Protection takes real effort and is often the first thing left out of a leaner-looking quote.

Ask whether scaffolding, access equipment or any temporary support is included in the total shown or quoted separately, and note which each professional does.

Whether any temporary support is needed at all is a question for a qualified professional who has seen the property, not something to settle from quotes.

Record which quotes include the professional's own attendance and coordination of other trades, and which assume you will be doing that coordination yourself.

Coordination is real work, and a quote that omits it is describing a different job even when the described outcome looks the same.

Note any assumption a quote makes about what lies behind existing surfaces, and ask in writing how that quote says the matter would be handled if things differ.

This is where a firm-looking document becomes an open one, and the wording used matters more than the total shown.

Nobody can tell you what is behind a finished surface without investigation, and any investigation is work for a qualified professional.

Write down what each quote assumes about when work may take place and how the property is reached, since a quote based on unrestricted access is not comparable with one that is not.

Restricted access, shared entrances and limits on when work may happen change how a job is organised and are often assumed rather than stated.

Ask whether the quote assumes existing services can stay exactly where they are, and what the professional would expect to happen if they cannot.

A quote that assumes nothing moves is a different document from one that allows for relocation, even when both describe the same finished room.

Record whether the professional visited the property before quoting or worked from what you sent, and treat those two documents as different in kind.

A quote prepared without a visit carries assumptions that have never been tested against the building.

Note any quote that includes something you never asked for, and ask what prompted it before deciding whether it is padding, an error or something you had missed.

Unrequested items are sometimes the most useful thing in the document, because they show what an experienced eye noticed at the property.

Ask what would need to be true at the property for the quoted approach to remain valid, and write the answer down in the professional's own words rather than yours.

Their conditions, in their language, are what you will want to reread if something unexpected appears once work starts.

Ask what event triggers each payment stage, and whether that trigger is a date, a delivery to the property or a completed part of the work.

A stage tied to completed work behaves very differently from one tied to a calendar, and the difference rarely appears in the totals.

Note whether anything is requested before work starts, and ask plainly what that request is said to secure and what you would have in return.

What protection you have for anything paid in advance is a legal question. Put the wording in front of your own legal adviser before agreeing.

Write down whether materials are dealt with separately from the work itself, and ask who owns materials once they are on site but not yet used in the work.

Ownership of stored or delivered materials is a question owners rarely think to ask and occasionally wish they had.

Ownership and title questions belong with your own legal adviser rather than with the professional who wrote the document.

Ask how the professional handles the final stage of payment, and what they consider the work being finished actually to mean in practice.

Finished means something different to the person who has to leave and the person who has to live there.

Record where each document says anything would be held back for outstanding items, and how the release of it would be decided and by whom.

Retention arrangements vary widely and are far easier to discuss before anyone has started than after something is outstanding.

Note which quotes state how tax has been treated in the totals shown and which are silent on it, and ask the silent ones to say so in writing.

Tax treatment varies by place and by the nature of the work. Take that question to your own qualified adviser rather than settling it here.

Ask how a change to the work would be recorded, and whether the professional expects that record to exist before or after the extra work is carried out.

Agreeing the sequence now avoids the common situation where work has already happened and only the paperwork is in dispute.

Write down who in your household may request a change to the work, and make sure that is stated to everyone quoting rather than assumed on site.

Instructions given casually by whoever happens to be at home are a frequent source of disagreement later.

Note what each quote says about unforeseen conditions, and whether that wording leaves you any say before additional work proceeds.

Wording about unforeseen conditions has legal effect. Ask your own legal adviser what it would mean for you before accepting it.

Record whether you would be shown a revised total before agreeing a change, or would only see the effect on the next request for payment.

This single question separates documents that look similar and behave very differently once work is under way.

Ask whether a change to one part of the work would affect any other part already quoted, and how that knock-on effect would be dealt with.

Changes rarely stay in one place, and a professional who can describe the ripple has thought about the job as a whole.

Put every quote on a single sheet you control, using headings taken from your own scope rather than adopting the structure of any one professional's document.

Adopting one professional's structure silently makes their way of describing the work the standard everyone else is judged against.

Mark every place where a document is silent rather than leaving that cell blank, because silence and inclusion look identical once your notes have gone cold.

Blank cells get read as included when you come back to them, which is exactly the mistake this sheet exists to prevent.

Write down when each quote was issued and how long the professional says it stands, so you are not comparing something that has since been withdrawn.

Quotes lapse quietly, and a lapsed one can make a live one look unreasonable for no real reason.

Record who you dealt with for each enquiry, and whether that person would still be involved once work began at the property.

The person who prepares a document is not always the person who runs the work, and it is a fair question to ask early.

Note anything a professional told you in conversation that does not appear in their written document, and ask for it to be added in writing before you compare.

Verbal reassurance is the most common thing owners rely on and the least likely thing to survive into the finished job.

Keep the superseded version of any revised quote, and note what changed between versions and what prompted the change.

A revision history tells you how a professional responds to questions, which is information you will want when choosing.

Group your unanswered questions by professional so each follow-up conversation is short and specific rather than a repeat of the first meeting.

People answer a focused question well and a broad one vaguely, and you have already used their goodwill once.

Send the same clarification request to everyone where the gap is common to all the documents, so the answers stay comparable with each other.

Asking only the professional you already prefer produces an answer you cannot use in a comparison.

Ask each professional to confirm in writing anything clarified by telephone before you update your comparison sheet with it.

A clarification that exists only in your notes is a clarification that will be remembered differently by both of you.

Decide and record what would cause you to rule a quote out entirely, and write that down before you hear the answers rather than after.

Deciding your limits in advance is the only reliable defence against reasoning backwards from whichever total appealed to you most.

Note whether each professional was willing to explain their assumptions plainly, and treat the way that conversation went as information in its own right.

How someone handles being questioned before appointment is a fair guide to how questions will be handled once work is under way.