Five things to check before you pay a renovation deposit

A renovation quote is not a price. It's a description of work with a number attached, and the number is the least informative part of it.

Two quotes can differ by $6,000 because one of them is more expensive, or because one of them is less complete. Nothing on the front page tells you which.

Here's what to check before you pay anyone a deposit.

1. What is the quote measuring?

Carpentry in Singapore is usually quoted per foot run — and some contractors count the top and bottom rows of cabinets separately while others quote both together. That's a 2× difference behind an identical-looking rate.

If you check nothing else on this list, check this one, because it silently distorts every comparison you make.

Work it through: at $120 per foot run, a 20-foot kitchen costs $2,400 if that rate covers both rows — and $4,800 if each row is quoted separately. Identical rate on the page, double the bill. It also runs the other way: $95 per row beats $180 for both rows on the page, but costs more on the wall.

Ask two questions of every quote. Does the rate cover both the top and bottom cabinets, or is each row priced separately? And how many feet run have you measured in total? Multiply the answers together and you finally have figures that can be compared.

2. What's excluded?

The most expensive thing in a renovation quote is usually something that isn't in it.

Go looking specifically for:

• Hacking and disposal. Removing the developer's existing fittings, and carting the debris away.
• Haulage. Getting materials up to your unit.
• Making good. Patching and repainting where other trades have opened things up.
• Electrical relocation. Moving points rather than using them where they are.
• Plumbing beyond the existing points.
• Appliances. Frequently assumed to be included, frequently not.
• The countertop and backsplash, which are sometimes a separate line and occasionally absent entirely.

A quote with a short exclusions list isn't necessarily better than one with a long list. Often it's worse — the long list is a contractor who has thought about it and is telling you. The short list may just be a contractor who will tell you later, when you have no leverage.

Ask directly: what is not in this price? The quality of the answer tells you a lot about how the rest of the job will go.

3. How does the payment schedule work?

Renovation is normally paid in stages tied to progress — a deposit, then payments as defined milestones complete, with a final portion on handover.

What you're checking for is whether the money stays roughly in step with the work. A schedule that front-loads heavily leaves you paying for work you haven't received, and it's the structure behind most renovation disputes that go badly.

Two specific things to look at:

The size of the deposit. A deposit is normal. A very large one is worth asking about.

Whether a meaningful amount is held back until handover. A final payment on completion is what gives you leverage to get the snagging list actually finished. If nearly everything is paid before then, you're relying on goodwill.

4. What happens when the scope changes?

It will. You'll want an extra socket, or the wall will turn out to be different from the drawing.

The question is whether variations are priced before they're carried out, in writing, or whether they surface as a number at the end. This is the single most common route from "fixed price" to a final bill that isn't the price you agreed.

Ask how variation orders are handled. "We'll let you know" is not a process.

5. Is it a fixed price, or a starting point?

"From $X" and "$X" are different commitments, and the difference is often not obvious until much later.

If a quote is a range or a starting figure, ask what specifically moves it and by how much. Legitimate answers exist — flat condition, material tier, extra carpentry runs, the amount of hacking. What you're testing is whether the contractor can name the variables, or whether the range exists so the number can drift upward once you've committed.

The part most checklists leave out

Every article like this — ours included — tells you to demand an itemised quote. Very few of the businesses publishing that advice publish their own.

That's worth sitting with. Full line-item pricing is genuinely difficult to publish in advance, because scope, materials and flat condition really do vary between jobs, and a published line item is a hostage to fortune. That's a real constraint, not an excuse.

But it does mean you should be sceptical of anyone — us included — who advises transparency in the abstract while showing you a headline number. The reasonable middle is a contractor who can tell you what drives their price, what's always in, what's always extra, and what would change it. If they can answer that clearly, the absence of a public line-item table matters much less.

If they can't, the number is a guess wearing a suit.

Where to go next

Our packages are quoted as fixed prices for a defined scope. The portfolio is real completed projects, photographed as handed over.

Before you finalise anything, the HDB rules for BTO renovation covers what actually needs a permit and the 3-year restriction that changes most bathroom plans — and the CPF question matters if you're still working out where the money comes from.

And if you already have quotes in hand, the offer below is genuinely open: send them over and we'll tell you what's in them and what isn't, including if the answer is that someone else's is better.