What is a change order

A change order is how any change to your project gets agreed and recorded during the build. Scope, cost, expected milestone dates, milestone payment percentages: if any of those move, it goes through a change order. It's a formal process rather than a verbal agreement, and that's deliberate.

When change orders happen

Renovations involve changes. Some come from you, like a different finish or an extra item in scope. Some come from your builder, like a structural surprise or a hidden service that wasn't visible when they quoted. Both take the same path.

How it works

1. The change is identified. Either you or your builder spots that something needs to change. Your builder should talk it through with you before they submit anything.
2. Your builder submits the change order in the platform. It sets out what's changing, whether it adds cost or takes it away, the value, and the effect on your timeline, including any changes to the remaining milestones and a revised completion date. Milestones you've already approved are locked and can't be altered.
3. You review it in your dashboard. You'll be notified when it's waiting. Ask your builder anything you're unsure about before you decide. Nothing changes until you approve.
4. You both accept. You each confirm you've read it and accept the changes to scope, cost and timeline. The change order then forms part of your Home Improvement Contract. Everything else in the HIC stays as it was.
5. Your project updates. The total construction value changes, and your milestones and completion date become whatever the change order set out. That's the agreed programme from then on.

Paying for a change

The cost of a change is added to your total construction value, so your builder is paid for it through the remaining milestone payments rather than as a separate bill.

If the change adds cost, it appears as a payment in your dashboard and you can pay it right away. If it reduces the cost, you may be owed a refund, and the platform processes that automatically.

Why it all goes through Beams

Keeping every change and every payment on the platform protects you and your builder both. The change order is the record of what you agreed: the scope, the cost, the timeline, and the date you each accepted it.

If you pay your builder outside the platform, or agree a change between yourselves without logging it, there's no record to fall back on. Should you disagree later about what was agreed or what was owed, it's much harder to sort out, for you and for your builder.

If you reject a change

You can say no. You and your builder are both notified, and the change order is logged as Rejected where you can both see it. Your scope, cost and timeline stay exactly as they were. If you rejected it because something in it wasn't right rather than because you don't want the work, say so, and your builder can submit a revised one.

What if the change is small?

Small changes still go through the process. The bar isn't size, it's clarity. A change order for a £200 material substitution takes minutes and leaves a clean record.

What about emergencies on site?

Changes should be agreed before the work happens. There's one exception. If something on site is genuinely unsafe and can't wait, your builder can do what's needed to make it safe, then raise the change order with you immediately after.

If the emergency was caused by your builder's own work, it isn't a change order at all. They're obliged to put it right at no cost to you.

What this means for you

Don't agree changes verbally and don't pay outside the platform. Get it in a change order and approve it, and you and your builder are both covered. The article How to change something on your spec mid-project covers customer-led changes specifically.