What is the refundable build deposit?
The build deposit is a £1,000 payment that secures your builder's time and schedule slot. It's refundable, and it nets off against the construction fee.
The build deposit is £1,000. You pay it to Beams once you've chosen your builder and accepted their quote. It's refundable, and it nets off against your final construction fee. It exists to give your builder confidence that the project is real, so they can hold their schedule for you.
What it secures
When you accept a quote, your builder needs to start blocking out time. Renovations don't happen on a moment's notice — your builder may need to turn down other work or push other projects back to fit yours in.
The deposit is the signal. It tells the builder this is a real project, with a real date attached, and that they can plan around it. Without it, builders end up holding time slots for projects that may not happen, which is a problem we see often in the wider industry.
How it sits inside the rest of your payment
The deposit is the first thing you pay to Beams on the build side. The rest of the construction fee — the bigger number — comes later, two weeks before break ground. When that final payment is due, the £1,000 you've already paid is taken off it, so you're not paying twice.
When it's refundable
The deposit is refundable up until the Home Improvement Contract (HIC) is signed. If you decide not to proceed — because the design takes you somewhere different, because the timing changes, or because you've changed your mind — we refund the deposit through the same payment processor that took it. The refund usually reaches your account within a few days.
After the Home Improvement Contract is signed, your contractual rights take over. Your 14-day cooling-off period applies. After that, what happens to deposit funds depends on the specifics of the situation and your contract.
How to pay it
You'll be prompted to pay the deposit on your dashboard once you've accepted a quote. Card or bank transfer are usually both available — the dashboard will show you what your options are at that moment.
What happens next
Once the deposit lands, your build advisor confirms with the builder and you start working through the steps that get you to break ground. The Home Improvement Contract gets generated and sent to you both for signature. You confirm the scope of works and materials list. The construction fee is funded into the Beams Account two weeks before break ground.
Related articles
- Signing your HIC and what to expect next
- How construction payments work
- Cancelling a project before HIC
- The contracts behind your project