Am I being overcharged by my builder? A homeowner’s checklist

"Am I being overcharged?" is the hardest question to answer about a building quote, because overcharging almost never looks like overcharging. There is no line that says "padding." Instead there is a price you cannot fully explain, a breakdown that is missing, or a rate that feels high but you have nothing to compare it to.

This is a checklist you can run against your own quote. Each item is a yes/no. Count the yeses at the end.

Price#

• There is no itemised breakdown. A single lump sum ("Kitchen, £14,000") hides everything, including the margin. This is the most common red flag of all. See how to read a builder's quote.
• The labour looks high. Days times the day rate is well above the normal rate for your region.
• The materials look high. The materials figure is noticeably above what the same items cost at a builders' merchant.
• The margin is unexplained. The gap between raw cost and total is well above 25%, with no premium spec, insurance, or warranty behind it. See what is a fair markup.
• You cannot compare it. Nobody else has priced the same scope, so you have no benchmark at all.

Scope#

• Provisional sums are doing the heavy lifting. Big "allowances" keep the headline price low while leaving the real cost open-ended.
• Obvious items are missing. No scaffolding, no skip or waste removal, no making good, no Building Regs fees. Their absence means surprise charges later, not a cheaper job. See hidden costs in builder quotes.
• The spec is vague. "Supply and fit bathroom" with no brands, models, or quantities means you cannot tell what you are paying for.

Contract and conduct#

• Large upfront deposit. A request for a big payment before any work starts, especially in cash, is a warning sign.
• Pressure to decide now. "This price is only good today" is a sales tactic, not a real constraint.
• No written terms. No payment schedule tied to milestones, no start and finish dates, no exclusions list.
• No paper trail on the business. No company details you can check, no VAT number where you would expect one, no references.

Scoring it#

• 0–1 yeses. The quote is probably fine. A single flag usually has an innocent explanation worth a quick question.
• 2 yeses. Worth a closer look. Ask for an itemised breakdown and a like-for-like quote from one other builder.
• 3 or more. A pattern. This is the point to challenge specific lines, get a comparable quote, or have it checked independently before you commit.

What overcharging is not#

A high quote is not automatically an unfair one. A busy, established, fully insured builder who offers a real warranty will cost more than a cash-in-hand one-man band, and that is a high price, not a rip-off. The test is never the size of the number on its own. It is whether the number is itemised, whether the rates match your region, and whether the extra buys you something real.

The shortcut#

Running this checklist by hand means knowing the day rates and merchant prices for your area. Check the Quote does that part for you: paste or upload your quote and we check every line against current UK rates for your postcode, flag what sits above the fair range, and tell you what is missing. Your first check is free. If you want to dig into the diagnostics yourself first, see how to tell if a quote is too high.