Garden Reinstatement After Building Work Checklist

Photograph the whole outdoor space from several fixed positions before any work starts, and put a clear date on every photograph you take.

A dated set taken beforehand is the only version of the garden that both parties can later agree on.

Photograph the access route in detail, including the surface, the edges, any gate, and anything standing along it that could be damaged.

The route is where most of the damage happens, and it is the part of the garden least likely to have been recorded.

Take close photographs of anything you particularly value, including specific plants, a lawn edge, a specimen tree or a laid surface.

General views do not establish the condition of a particular thing, and the particular things are what arguments are about.

Note and photograph anything already damaged, uneven or worn, so that pre-existing condition is recorded rather than disputed later.

An honest record of what was already imperfect makes the rest of the record more credible, not less.

Give a copy of the record to the contractor before work starts and note the date you did so.

A record produced at the end is evidence; a record shared at the start is a shared understanding, which is more useful.

Write a short inventory alongside the photographs listing what exists outside, so nothing depends on somebody noticing it in an image.

Photographs show a great deal and prove very little unless somebody has written down what they are looking at.

List by name and position the plants, shrubs and trees that must survive, rather than asking generally for the planting to be looked after.

A named list can be checked and handed to a crew; a general instruction cannot be acted on by the person actually working.

Say plainly which planting you accept may not survive, so that effort goes where it matters rather than being spread thin.

Being honest about what is expendable makes the protected list credible and much more likely to be respected.

Ask what is proposed around any established tree, including where machinery would stand and where materials would be placed.

Ground around a tree is easily compacted and the effect appears long after the builders have gone.

Anything affecting an established tree belongs with a qualified arboricultural professional, and protection status must be confirmed locally.

List the structures and hard surfaces that must be handed back intact, including any wall, fence, terrace, step or edging.

Surfaces are often reinstated to a different standard from the one they were in, and naming them sets the expectation early.

Ask whether anything valuable could be lifted, moved or stored for the duration, and who would be responsible for it while it is out.

Moving something out of the way is frequently cheaper than protecting it in place, and it is rarely proposed unless the owner raises it.

Agree how protected items will be marked on the ground so that a crew arriving on any given day can see what is protected.

The list only works if it reaches the person with the machine, and marking is what carries it from the office to the site.

Agree where the route runs and write it down, including whether it changes at any stage of the work.

An unagreed route becomes whatever is most convenient on the day, and it moves as the work moves.

Note what the route crosses, including drains, covers, soft ground, a lawn, a terrace or anything retaining a level.

Each of those raises a different question, and the answer is much easier to arrange before the route is in use.

Ask what protection is proposed for the route, who provides it, when it goes down and how long it stays in place.

Protection arrangements are a matter for the contractor to propose, but they are rarely offered unless the question is asked.

Note the width and any pinch point on the route, and ask whether what is proposed can actually pass along it.

A narrow side passage quietly governs what can reach the back of a property, and it is better understood before the skip arrives.

Mark any cover, grating, gully or stopcock on the route, and ask what happens where traffic has to cross it.

A cover under a wheel track is a predictable problem and an entirely avoidable one if it has been pointed out.

Agree specifically what the route is reinstated as at the end, because it will be in a different condition from everywhere else.

The route is where making good is most needed and least likely to have been thought about when the scope was written.

Ask where excavated material will be stored, how long it will stand there and whether it leaves the site at all.

Spoil placed on a lawn for a season is one of the commonest causes of a garden that never quite recovers.

Ask where materials and deliveries will be stacked, and agree the positions rather than leaving them to be chosen on arrival.

Stacked material both compacts and covers, and its position is decided in seconds by whoever is unloading unless it was agreed.

Ask where any machine, crane or lorry would stand, how often and for how long, and write those positions down.

A standing position is a concentrated load on one patch of ground, and its effect can reach further than the ground it stands on.

Where a machine would stand above or near retained ground, or over a drainage feature, ask a qualified professional before it is agreed.

Ask where a skip, a store or any welfare facility would be placed, and for how much of the programme each would stand there.

These stay for the whole job rather than a day, which makes their position one of the more consequential decisions.

Ask what happens to water, washings and run-off from the working area, where they are directed and what they pass through on the way.

What runs off a working area reaches planting, drainage and sometimes a neighbour, and it is worth raising before it happens.

Ask what is proposed about ground that will be repeatedly trafficked or stood on, and what reinstating it would involve.

The effect of repeated loading on soft ground is not visible at the surface and is not repaired by replacing turf.

Write down what making good means for each part of the outdoor space, rather than allowing one phrase to cover the whole garden.

A lawn, a terrace, a border and a boundary all need different answers, and one phrase gives the same answer to all four.

Agree whether surfaces are reinstated in the same materials, and what happens where the original material is no longer available.

Matching is where reinstatement most often disappoints, and the question is far easier to settle before anything is lifted.

Ask whether spare paving units or matching materials exist, and agree that lifted units are kept rather than disposed of.

Units lifted carefully and kept turn a repair into a replacement in kind; units thrown in a skip turn it into a matching exercise.

Agree what happens where protected planting does not survive, and whether replacement is in kind, in size or not at all.

Replacement of planting is the single most contested part of garden reinstatement, precisely because it is rarely defined.

Agree what happens to levels and to where water runs, so the garden is handed back draining as it did rather than merely looking similar.

Levels change during building work without anybody deciding to change them, and the consequence appears the first time it rains hard.

Ask when the outdoor reinstatement happens in the programme, and whether it is before or after the last of the deliveries.

Reinstatement carried out before the final deliveries is done twice or not at all, and the sequence is worth agreeing early.

Write down what you know or suspect is buried in the garden, including drainage, cables, supplies and anything previously installed.

An owner often holds knowledge nobody else does, and it is only useful if it is handed over before the ground is opened.

Ask whether any new service, drain or soakaway is proposed in the garden, where it would run and how deep it would be.

Trenches cut for the building reach across the garden and are reinstated to whatever standard was agreed, which is often nothing.

Ask what happens to any existing cover or chamber, including whether any would end up buried, raised or built over.

Something that can no longer be found or lifted is a defect an owner lives with for decades, and it starts here.

Ask where water from any new roof area will go, and whether that changes what any existing outdoor drainage receives.

Adding roof area is one of the commonest ways a garden starts flooding after building work that never touched the garden.

Where surface water goes is a design matter subject to consent, and requirements must be confirmed locally with the relevant authority.

Ask for photographs and positions of anything buried during the work, taken before it is covered over, and for a copy for your records.

That record can only be made while the trench is open, and it is the only evidence a future owner will have.

Where anything in the garden is holding a level, say so at the start and ask what is proposed near it.

A builder working on the house has no reason to know that something in the garden is structural unless the owner says so.

Work near anything holding a level belongs with a qualified engineer before it is agreed with a building contractor.

Arrange a separate walk of the outdoor space at the end, rather than folding it into the internal handover.

Outdoor items raised during an internal handover tend to be noted and then left behind as the project closes.

Walk with the starting photographs and the protected list in your hand, comparing each one rather than relying on what you remember.

Memory of how a garden looked before is unreliable, particularly after several months of living with it as a site.

Check the access route specifically and separately, since it was in use longest and is the most likely to have been overlooked.

The route is treated as a working area until the very end, so it is often the only part not yet reinstated at handover.

Look at where water now runs after rain, and note any change from how it behaved before the work.

This is the one item that cannot be checked on a dry handover day, so it is worth arranging a look after the first heavy rain.

Write the outstanding outdoor items as a dated list and agree when each will be dealt with rather than leaving it open.

An undated list of outdoor items is the form in which garden reinstatement quietly disappears at the end of a project.

Ask what you should watch for outside over the following year, including settlement along the line of any trench cut across the garden.

Some consequences appear only after a season, and knowing where to look is what allows them to be raised while it still matters.