Putney · SW15
Almost everything in this postcode is a Victorian or Edwardian house divided into flats. Whether yours is the garden flat, the raised ground floor, a first-floor conversion, a loft or a mansion block tells us more about the day than the number of bedrooms ever will.
Free survey, in person or by video. No figure before one.
What we do
Not by service name, and not by what stage of life you have reached. In SW15 the useful question is vertical: how many flights, whose staircase, and what turns at the top of them.
Lower-ground and garden flats — carrying down, not up.
Steps down, side returns, light wells
The lower-ground and garden flats under the Victorian terraces. Access is down rather than up, usually past a light well or through a side return, and the carrying is awkward in a way the floor number does not suggest.
Raised ground floor, the most straightforward level in the borough.
A flight up from the street
The classic Putney raised ground floor: a short flight from the pavement to the front door and generous rooms behind it. The easiest of the conversion levels, and the one where the doorway is usually the only constraint.
Conversions above the ground floor, where the staircase decides everything.
A shared hall and one turn
A shared front door, a communal hall belonging to everyone and no one, and a staircase with a turn at the top. Most of what goes wrong in a Putney move happens on that turn.
Two or three flights, narrowing
Top-floor conversions and loft extensions, where the staircase narrows as it climbs and the last flight was added long after the house was built. Crewed for the climb rather than for the volume.
Mansion blocks with a lift, a porter and a set of rules.
Porters, lifts and permissions
The purpose-built blocks around the Heath and the main roads. A different animal entirely from a conversion: a lift, a porter, a managing agent and a set of rules about when a move may happen.
Jobs defined by the dates rather than by the building.
Held between two addresses
Goods collected, listed and held while dates settle — and the standard answer to the other Putney problem, which is a new flat that will not take everything the old one held.
Moving between two levels — and most people here are — is planned as one job. Put both on the quote form.
The section
A three-bedroom flat is not a useful description in SW15. A three-bedroom flat on the lower ground, reached down a light well, and a three-bedroom flat on the top floor of a converted terrace are opposite problems that happen to contain the same furniture.
The way inA managed entrance, a porter who expects notice, and a lift that was installed a long time ago.
What limits itThe lift car and, more often overlooked, its door opening. What fits inside may not get through the doors.
The way inTwo or three flights, narrowing as they go, with the last one usually added when the loft was converted.
What limits itHeadroom and width together. A wardrobe that managed the first turn frequently will not manage the second.
The way inShared front door, communal hall, one flight up with a turn at the top and a private door on the landing.
What limits itThe turn. It sets a hard maximum on the longest rigid object, and it is where most Putney furniture gets stuck.
The way inUp a short flight from the street to the original front door, then straight into rooms with the best proportions in the house.
What limits itThe front door itself, and occasionally the gate. Once a piece is through, the rooms rarely argue.
The way inDown a flight from the pavement, often past a light well or along a side return before the door is reached at all.
What limits itTurning space at the bottom of the steps. A long item that cannot be swung round in a light well does not come out that way.
Two levels in one move — a garden flat going to a top floor — is the hardest combination in the postcode and entirely routine once it is known in advance. Say both on the form.
Shared parts
In a converted house the front door, the hall and the staircase belong to everyone in the building. That is where most of the friction in a Putney move happens, and almost all of it is avoidable with a week's notice and a runner on the floor.
In a converted house the entrance hall is shared, which means blocking it for an hour affects three or four households who did not choose to move today. Runners go down, the route is kept to one side, and the door is never wedged open longer than it has to be.
Most Putney leases say something about alterations and access, and a managing agent who hears about a move afterwards is considerably less helpful than one who heard about it first. A short email a week ahead prevents nearly all of it.
The single commonest post-move dispute in a conversion, and almost entirely preventable. Communal staircases in these houses are narrow, and the walls are usually the freeholder's responsibility rather than yours — which is exactly why they get charged for.
Controlled parking covers most of SW15 and the bays outside a converted house serve several flats. A suspension is applied for in advance through Wandsworth rather than negotiated on the morning with whoever happens to be parked there.
None of this applies in a mansion block, where a porter and a managing agent handle it formally instead. Those work differently.
Further than SW15
The same question follows you abroad. A Paris apartment on the fourth floor of a Haussmann building and a first-floor Putney conversion pose the same problem in two languages, and the answer is still measured before the van is loaded.
Paris and the Île-de-France, Normandy, the Loire and the south-west.
Madrid, Catalonia, Valencia, Andalucía and the Balearics by ferry.
Milan and the lakes, Piedmont, Tuscany, Umbria and Rome.
Lisbon and Cascais, Porto, the Silver Coast and the Algarve.
Collections across south-west London and the M25 corridor, plus loads from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol when a European run is already scheduled. How the overseas side works.
Asked most often
Because in SW15 it predicts the day. A garden flat reached down a light well and a loft conversion three flights up contain roughly the same furniture and need completely different crews, vehicles and timings. The bedroom count tells us almost nothing by comparison.
In a first-floor conversion the turn at the top of the flight is what decides it, not the width of the staircase. We measure that diagonal at survey and tell you plainly. Where it will not go, the options are dismantling, a window, or leaving the piece — and all three are better discussed before the day.
Both, ideally, and a week is plenty. In a converted house the hall and staircase are shared, so a move affects households who did not choose to have one. A managing agent who hears in advance is considerably more helpful than one who hears afterwards.
Easier once the permissions are in place, and slower when they are not. A block has a lift, a porter and somebody responsible for the communal parts — but it also has rules about move hours and a lift that has to be booked, and the car dimensions decide what can come out at all.
All of SW15, including Roehampton and the East Putney streets. Roehampton is actually the easier half — better vehicle access than the conversion terraces, with longer carrying distances once you are inside the estates.
More on the questions page — measuring the turn yourself, who pays for a marked communal wall, and what to ask a managing agent for.
That and the two addresses. If you can also measure the clear diagonal at the turn in your staircase, we can usually answer the furniture question straight away.