How do I pay for my build? There are many high street lenders who will advance up to 90% of the land costs and 70% of the build cost. Each lender will have their own system so shop around until you find one that best suits you.

You can often find a comprehensive list of lenders and services in the BUILD IT magazine, not to mention all the other very useful information that you can pick upon when reading it.

You do not have to move out of your home and live in a caravan on your building site. You can stay in your own home until near completion if you can tie up the sale with the completion of your new home. Alternatively many self builders move into rented accommodation for the duration of the build and then move in to a fully furnished home.

The majority of lenders operate a stage payment system for the advance of funds. Most lenders split this up into 4 equal payments that are paid after you reach the required stage of building. These are normally DPC (ground floor), roofed in, plastered out and completion. As mentioned earlier you will find many minor variants of this system.

When choosing your builder or contractors we would recommend that you create a detailed contract for the work to be undertaken. This can sometimes be easier said than done, especially when you are managing the build yourself and employing subcontractors individually and they can be very convincing and appear trustworthy at times. The best rule should be never pay a deposit to a subcontractor even if he is supplying the materials as he should be purchasing the materials on account anyway. If the contracted amount is large agree stage payments, so you only pay after the work is completed, and also agree a time period during which he will be responsible for rectifying any faults that may appear.

If you choose a single contactor the same applies to the contract, except you will probably have to pay a small deposit and then stage payments upon completion of the agreed stages.