Victorian houses, divided
Moving out of a London conversion flat
A flat inside somebody else’s house, with a shared stair and four sets of interests.
An enormous share of London’s flats are not purpose-built at all. They are Victorian and Edwardian houses that were divided — sometimes carefully in the 1980s, sometimes crudely in the 1960s — into two, three or four dwellings.
A conversion flat move is therefore a move through a building that several other households also own a piece of. The staircase belongs to everyone, the front door belongs to everyone, and any damage becomes a service-charge argument.
That shared ownership, more than the stairs themselves, is what shapes how this work has to be done.
Shared fabric, shared liability
The communal hallway and stairs are usually the freeholder’s responsibility and the leaseholders’ collective expense. Scuffed plaster or a chipped newel post in a shared hallway is not a private matter — it becomes a bill split between people who did not move.
So protection goes down first and comes up last: runners on the flooring, corner guards on the turns, and a covering on the communal front door where it has to be held open. This is standard here rather than an extra.
Many leases require the freeholder or managing agent to be notified before a removal, and a growing number require evidence of public liability cover. We handle that correspondence rather than leaving you to discover the requirement on the day.
The staircase itself is typically the original house stair, designed for one household and now serving four. It is narrower than a purpose-built block’s and has no service alternative. Top-floor flats are a genuine carry and the crew is sized accordingly.
Other kinds of building
Next step
Moving out of one of these?
Send us the address, the floor, and a photograph of the staircase or the lift. We will tell you what the building allows before we talk about anything else.