How RedBook Protects Its Clients
The power of a dinner party recommendation is hard to underestimate. A trusted friend, or a friend of that friend, enthusing about a particular service—be it a good plumber, a reliable builder, a particularly brilliant school or a talented lawyer—is beguilingly attractive. Word-of-mouth recommendations eliminate the need for further research: surely what worked well for my friend would work just as well for me. How many times has this turned out not to be the case? Recommendations are subjective: they suited that person’s requirements, timing, budget and personality.
About 50% of the time, when clients come to us with a preferred designer or contractor recommended by a friend, they quickly find through our analysis that the style or approach doesn’t fit their needs. In a few cases, the businesses put forward by clients as recommendations have even been red-flagged in our annual due diligence reviews as being on the point of bankruptcy or struck off RIBA.
RedBook is uniquely positioned as a third-party, independent and unbiased advisor. Our mission has always been to put our clients’ needs first. To that end, we go to considerable lengths to shield and guide them at every stage of their property-buying and owning journey, to prevent unnecessary and expensive mistakes. Here’s how we do it:
Protect the purchase
Many of our clients—and we encourage this as much as possible—use buying agents to find them the right property. When the property requires work, RedBook can step in to offer our professional opinion as to how much a renovation will cost, what the approximate timeline of such a project looks like and what the likely planning constraints are, if any. That way, the client has a full picture of what the overall cost of the purchase and project looks like before committing to buy. We give honest feedback. Even if it means they choose another option, it almost always ends up back where the budget against the scope needs to be; you sadly can’t get around it, but you can be led to believe otherwise.
Protect the identity
Fame and fortune can lead to the ugly practice of overinflated fees and adding unwarranted zeros to invoices. This was confirmed to us only the other day when we were approached by a Middle Eastern family about to begin a significant renovation project in London. When we sense-checked the design fees put forward by their long-standing preferred studio, we discovered they were charging twice the market rate. It’s one of the reasons RedBook clients remain anonymous until a project team has been assembled and fees gathered. The playing field is levelled.
Armed with this information, we go through our internal matching service to create a list of best-fit design and delivery firms from our portfolio of over 150. We check that they have the capacity to take on the workload and who will be appointed as the project lead. Clients are then invited to meet the final shortlist and encouraged to do so in person, if possible, to understand their ideas, but also to establish if there’s the right chemistry. A project will often take two or more years to complete, and so it is vital to its success that everyone gets on together.
We benchmark fee proposals in-house and cross-check them against each other. Once the teams are chosen, and the fees agreed, we will check the contracts to confirm everything is wrapped up correctly. We’ll also make sure that what has been proposed by the design team aligns with what we believe our clients want, in terms of scope of works and specification—and if that means having a difficult conversation with anyone involved, that’s what we’ll do.
We read the small print so our time-pressed clients don’t have to. Our team is made up of qualified architects who are well-versed in understanding the nuances of tenders and details that lie within technical documents. We track down and straighten up any irregularities before anything is signed.
Protect the journey
Finally, once work commences on site, we do our best to make the process a positive one for clients. We’re on standby to help steer everything forward as much as clients desire, either by taking on the role of Project Guardian or acting as a hands-on, single point of contact Client Representative. Ultimately, our mission is to capitalise on our 350 projects and 15-plus years of experience running luxury property projects to ensure that clients save time, avoid mistakes, and, ultimately, enjoy the journey.
Protect the project
If there’s one solid gold prediction when it comes to the successful outcome of property projects, it’s this: cutting corners or diving in too quickly leads to years of trouble ahead. That’s why we insist on time built in at the front end to ensure every aspect of the project scope is captured and considered before any contractor opens the front door.
This starts with writing a detailed brief from which we can, using real-time figures from the RedBook Index, give clients an indication of what it will cost and how long it will take. It gives clients clarity and confidence about what they are taking on—removing the chances of any nasty hidden surprises down the line.
Next, our bespoke taste exploration exercise helps to define style preferences and establishes where the clients sit on the design spectrum. Those couples who have tastes which dovetail perfectly together are pretty rare. Instead of presenting a Pinterest board representing a range of disparate ideas, this exercise proves illuminating for clients and leapfrogs the time it takes to find an aesthetic middle ground.
For more information about our services, please contact us at enquiries@redbookagency.com or on 020 7060 6222.
