Choosing an interior designer in Borivali: what to ask before you pay an advance

The problem with how interiors are usually quoted

Most quotes arrive as a single number for the whole flat. That number is impossible to compare against another single number, because you cannot see what either one contains.

A quote you can actually judge has three things in it: quantities, specifications and exclusions. Twelve running feet of wardrobe in a named board, not "bedroom wardrobes". Once you have that, two quotes become comparable and the cheaper one stops automatically looking better.

The questions worth asking

1. What is the scope, in quantities?

Ask for running feet, square feet and unit counts. If a designer will not put quantities in writing before an advance, that is the answer to the question.

2. What is excluded?

This is where a budget is won or lost. Things that are commonly outside an interiors quote and land later as separate bills:

• ·Civil work, if walls are being moved, and anything that needs the society's or the BMC's permission
• ·Electrical load upgrades and plumbing changes beyond the existing points
• ·Flooring, false ceiling and painting, which the big firms price as separate line items rather than inside the package
• ·In the kitchen, the sink, hob, chimney and counter top, which sit outside even a "complete" modular kitchen quote
• ·Loose furniture, curtains, light fittings and appliances
• ·Society charges: the refundable renovation deposit, lift use and debris removal
• ·GST at 18 percent, which the published package prices exclude

3. Who is on site, and how often?

Design and execution are different jobs and are often different people. Ask who supervises day to day, how often they visit, and who you call when a carpenter has a question at 11am on a Tuesday. A designer who visits weekly and a supervisor who is there daily is a different arrangement from a designer who visits weekly and nobody else.

4. What happens if it runs late?

Interiors run late. The useful question is not whether it will, but what happens when it does. A written completion date with an agreed consequence is worth more than an optimistic verbal one.

5. What has this person built near here?

Ask to see a finished flat in a nearby building, not a rendering. Renderings are made by a different person than the one holding the drill.

The advance question

Advances are normal. Large advances before anything physical happens are not, and the two largest organised firms publish exactly what they take, which gives you a benchmark to hold any designer against.

Livspace takes 10 percent of the quote, or 60,000 rupees if that is more, to book. HomeLane takes 10 percent to book, another 10 percent before the site is masked, then 30 percent of the woodwork and 80 percent of the non woodwork when the works contract is signed, with the last 50 percent of the woodwork due before the factory dispatches. Livspace's balance falls due once 40 to 50 percent of the work is done on site.

Read the pattern rather than the percentages. Both firms take a small booking amount, freeze the design and the quantities, and only then take the large payment, and both tie it to a signed contract or a dispatch, not to a date. A designer who wants 30 or 40 percent before a single drawing is signed off is asking for something the largest players in the market do not, and the question to ask is what that money buys you on the day you pay it.

What should exist before the second payment: signed drawings, a bill of quantities with named materials, a works contract with a completion date and a consequence, and the society's written permission. Money moves when those exist and when something arrives or is installed, not when a calendar page turns.

What it costs

The honest answer is a band, and the firms that publish prices for Mumbai give you its edges.

The organised firms publish Mumbai package prices, and the spread between a basic specification and a premium one for the same flat is wide, wider than most people expect before they start. That spread is exactly why we do not print a band here. The number that matters is the itemised estimate for your flat, with your quantities and your finishes, and we give it before any work starts.

So for a 2 BHK in Borivali, Kandivali or Malad, with a kitchen, wardrobes, TV unit, false ceiling and painting, the honest answer is an itemised estimate for that flat, plus 18 percent GST, plus whatever civil, flooring or bathroom work sits outside the package. A quote far below the market's published packages is worth asking about. A quote above them should show you, item by item, where the money goes.

We handle interiors as part of the move rather than as a separate business, so we price against these same bands. If you have a quote in hand, send it and we will tell you whether it sits inside the band and what it has left out.

What a Mumbai society will not let you do

The rule is in the model bye laws every registered society adopts. Bye law 46 says no member may make any addition or alteration to a flat without the committee's prior written permission, and no structural change at all without the competent authority's, which in Mumbai means the BMC.

That splits interior work into two lists. Needs the society's written no objection and nothing else: tiling, a bathroom renovated in the same place, false ceilings and painting, rewiring, a modular kitchen, and non load bearing partitions. Needs the BMC as well, under section 342 of the Municipal Corporation Act: touching a column, beam or load bearing wall, combining two flats, moving a bathroom or kitchen because the drainage moves with it, enclosing a balcony, and adding a mezzanine. Societies routinely refuse the second list outright, along with any work that changes the building's outside face or a neighbour's plumbing.

The society's letter usually comes with conditions, and they are much the same across the belt: an application ten to fifteen days ahead with the scope and the contractor's identity proofs, a refundable deposit that most societies set between 7,500 and 50,000 rupees, an indemnity bond, work between about nine and one and again from two or three until six, heavy drilling and breaking kept to the late morning, nothing on Sundays or public holidays, debris bagged and out within a day, and lift use either restricted or charged for. Get the letter before the first bag of cement arrives. Work that starts without it can be stopped by the committee, and a stopped site costs more per day than the permission would have.

Before you pay anything

Get the scope in writing with quantities. Get the exclusions in writing. Check one finished flat in person. Then pay an advance that matches what has actually been committed on your behalf.

We handle interiors as part of the move rather than as a separate business, which means we are still there after the keys. If you are planning a fit out in Borivali, Kandivali or Malad, tell us the flat and the budget you have in mind and we will come back with an itemised estimate before you commit to anything.