How to de-risk your construction project > avoiding hidden legal traps

The most expensive mistakes in construction rarely come from design—they come from what wasn’t spotted early enough, which is why de-risking your construction project is a vital step in the process, before design work actually starts.

Cracking architectural design is only part of the job. The other part? De-risking your project from the legal traps and “hidden” costs that sink budgets and dreams. Here’s an example of how I protect your project from unexpected legal costs, stress, and delays with ironclad compliance checks.

Check your deeds for restrictive covenants

Planning some building work? If you own the property and it’s not freehold [leasehold], then check your deeds. You might need to get approval from the freeholder before you can start the building work. The freeholder may also want to charge you some money for this privilege. This is sometimes called a “restrictive covenant.”

As it happens, this is something I always do for every project. I run through this as part of the Initial Design Consultation with all new clients, before I’ve even quoted.

Why de-risking your construction project starts on day one

This means the necessary checks and permissions can be obtained well in advance of the building work starting. As some freeholders are notoriously slow at responding, I always suggest getting this sorted sooner rather than later. Make sure it’s formalised and in writing, too.

If you don’t sort this out before building works start, the freeholder could take legal action against you and demand extortionate sums of money. Don’t ignore this and don’t get caught out. 😦

What’s the most expensive mistake you’ve seen that had nothing to do with design?

A cautionary tale about the Sheffield “freehold scout”

To provide some context there has recently been a freeholder scouting out properties that may have breached the legal deeds. This guy purchased the freeholds of several hundred properties in the Sheffield region at auction last year, in 2025.

This person has been sending dozens of threatening letters to leaseholders. He says he believes covenants in the lease have been breached [completed building works without prior permission] and asks leaseholders to pay substantial damages, with one way out: buying the freehold from him for up to £25,000. Apparently, the freeholds were purchased for about £400 each; this equates to a potential profit margin of over 6,000%!

Thing is, though, how does this guy know what home alterations had been made that breached the lease covenants? This isn’t a joke; I actually know some of the people in Sheffield who have been approached by this guy, who is trying to sting them.

So, who would you rather work with? Someone who de-risks your project? …and also makes it look and perform nice. 😀