Last updated 25 September 2026
A loft conversion lead never says whether next door will sign the party wall notice.
Leads.work sells a loft conversion lead for £49 plus VAT and a roof room lead for £84, with an £11 weekly fee on top. PlanWatch sells a monthly list of loft planning applications for £149. If you'd rather buy the homeowner's click yourself, loft searches cost £4.26 to £31.83 a click in Google Ads.
Set any of those against a job worth tens of thousands and the price hardly moves the sum. The time does. Between the call and the first steel going in there can be drawings, a certificate from the council, a neighbour with two months' notice and a building control notice, and none of that is on the lead.
From the government's own guidance
"Your neighbours cannot stop you from making changes to your property that are within the law, but they can affect how and when your works are carried out."
That's gov.uk on party walls. For a loft firm, "how and when" is the gap between winning a quote and getting paid for it. What sits in that gap.
Where we stand
We don't sell loft conversion leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying loft conversion leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build loft conversion specialists a website that turns visits into calls, and run Google Ads in an account in your own name, so every lead that comes in is a customer who found you, and nobody else was sold it.
What the lead is worth
A £49 lead against a loft worth five figures is a rounding error.
Checkatrade prices a 30 square metre Velux conversion at £22,500 to £30,000 and a mansard at £50,000 to £80,000. The last column takes Leads.work's £49 lead and assumes you win one quote in three.
| Loft conversion | Typical UK price | Weeks on site | £49 leads, per win |
|---|---|---|---|
| Velux (rooflight) conversion, 30m² | £22,500 to £30,000 | 4-6 | £147, 0.56% of the job |
| Dormer conversion, 30m² | £40,000 to £60,000 | 10-12 | £147, 0.29% of the job |
| Hip-to-gable conversion, 30m² | £50,000 to £70,000 | 10-12 | £147, 0.25% of the job |
| Mansard conversion, 30m² | £50,000 to £80,000 | 8-10 | £147, 0.23% of the job |
| Bungalow loft conversion, 50m² | £62,500 to £87,500 | 10-12 | £147, 0.20% of the job |
Prices and build times from Checkatrade's loft conversion cost guide, table dated March 2026. The per-win column uses the midpoint of each price band. One win in three is MyJobQuote's estimate for trades on its own platform. The lead price excludes VAT.
There's a loose industry guide that says winning a customer should cost somewhere between 10 and 15 percent of the job. On a £50,000 dormer, at one win in three, that would let a single lead cost £1,667 to £2,500. Nobody charges that, so the lead price is not where a loft firm wins or loses money. The weeks spent on quotes that never start are.
The roof room lead still costs little
Leads.work charges £84 for its roof room category, its dearest loft lead. At one win in three that's £252 a won job, 0.50% of a £50,000 dormer. A business buyer pays £54 for the standard loft lead.
Checkatrade adds costs the lead won't mention
Its guide lists party wall agreements, structural calculations, planning fees and bat surveys at £400 to £750 as easy-to-miss extras. Each is a conversation you have with the homeowner before they sign, and each adds time.
Your numbers
Put in your loft type and your hit rate, then price the lead.
It starts on a dormer. Pick a Velux, hip-to-gable, mansard or bungalow job instead, or type in what your average contract is actually worth. Then set how many quotes you give for every one that goes ahead, and add the price a seller has offered you.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY FOR A LOFT CONVERSION LEAD?
Pick a job, or type in what yours are worth
Starts on one in three, the figure MyJobQuote tells its own trades to expect. Put in yours.
You can pay up to about
£2,500
a lead, winning one in 3
- Healthy range, per won job
- £5,000 to £7,500
- Which per lead is
- £1,667 to £2,500
Put a seller's price in the last box and this will tell you what each won job would cost you.
The verdict rests on a rough industry band rather than a measured one. Your own margin on a loft is the better test.
Who sells them
Homeowner leads, planning lists, or a share of the job you win.
Loft leads come three ways: a homeowner who filled in a form, an address off the planning register, or a seller who takes a cut of the contract. Each row is the seller's own description of itself.
| Seller | What you pay | Who else gets it | In their words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leads.work | £49 a lead + VAT, £11 a week | Usually 1 to 3 others, 5 at most | "many customers ask more than one" |
| MyBuilder | A fee when shortlisted, amount not shown | Anyone who expresses interest | "Respond to as many leads as you like" |
| AceLeads | Joining fee, then a share of jobs won | You alone, or a small group | "only a share of the work you win" |
| Zapo / Get Work | From £400 a month + VAT | Nobody, it says | "exclusive to your business" |
| Leads Everyday | Not published | Nobody, it says | "never shared with competitors" |
| PlanWatch | £149 a month | One loft firm per patch | "one loft conversions subscriber per patch" |
| BuildAlert | £2 a letter, plans from £50 a month | Public data, anyone can find it | "other companies could identify the same projects" |
Leads.work prints a price, and its list shows what arrives
Leads.work (Leads Do Work) charges £49 plus VAT for a loft conversion lead and £84 for a roof room, with an £11 weekly fee on its Connect contract, or you can take a fixed weekly subscription instead. It says 1 to 3 other tradesmen usually compete for the same job, never more than 5, and Connect accounts see each lead first. It says the loft leads are drawn from more than 300 home improvement sites and blogs.
Its public list of the 10 latest loft leads, dated May to July, mixes the jobs you want with ones you don't. A master bedroom with en-suite in Southam and a two-bedroom terrace in Birkenhead sit next to "Plaster boarding out wall /Ceiling flooring" in Mitcham and "I want to make new loft for put things" in Oldham. Two were in Tain and Blairgowrie, in Scotland, where neither the English permitted development rules nor the Party Wall Act below applies.
MyBuilder bills you once you're shortlisted, win or lose
MyBuilder's loft conversion sign-up page lets you respond to any lead, then charges a fee for the homeowner's details "If you're shortlisted". Its terms say it isn't necessary to win the job for that fee to be payable, and the page shows no amount. It pitches "big jobs or smaller gap fillers". Its terms also say each fee is worked out on the job's likely size, value and location, so a loft sits at the dearer end. The fee rules are covered in is MyBuilder worth it.
AceLeads asks the roof questions up front
AceLeads records the conversion type, or flags a homeowner who wants you to tell them what the roof will take. It also asks for the head height at the ridge, a cut roof or trusses, whether drawings or structural calculations exist, and the planning position "as the homeowner describes it". It says most specialists want "roughly 2.2 metres" of head height. It doesn't charge per lead: there's a joining or setup fee, then a share of each job you win, agreed in writing, with no percentage published.
Zapo and Get Work: one company, two loft pages
Zapo, which says it was formerly Get Work, runs search ads to a website it builds for you and says the loft leads are exclusive to you, starting within 14 days. Its entry plan is from £400 a month plus VAT, £200 of which is ad budget, with 10 leads a month estimated across all the trades it serves. Spend £200 at the £9.59 Google estimates for "loft conversion near me" and you get about 21 clicks. That's about 1.5 leads at the conversion rate we use below, or about 4 at the one in 5 that Get Work says its pages achieve.
Get Work's loft page says "Over 3.6 million people search Google for a loft specialist each month", and 3.2 million further down, with no source for either. The busiest loft search in our Google Ads pull, plain "loft conversion", runs at about 14,800 a month. The same page says some loft leads "just need quick repairs".
Two sellers who start at the planning register
PlanWatch posts you the addresses of loft applications in your area each month for £149, one loft firm per patch, letters only. It counted 3,727 matching applications across the UK in 30 days, says a share already have a specialist attached, and says "Homeowners appoint whoever surveys first once consent lands." BuildAlert charges £2 a letter, with plans from £50 a month, and says mansards "rarely qualify as permitted development", so they "leave a clear paper trail". How letters to planning applicants work, and the rules on them, are in our builder leads guide.
Leads Everyday, and the agencies with no price
Leads Everyday runs Google Ads to a website it builds for you, for dormer, hip-to-gable, Velux and mansard work, and says the leads are "never shared with competitors". It gives no price; you book a call. Striker Leads, FatRank and Leads Nurtured sell loft lead generation on the same terms: a contact form and no figures.
If a lead is going to 3 other firms, what that does to your hit rate is worked through in the shared-lead trap.
Everything here about MyBuilder's contract comes from its own published terms and conditions, last read on 25 September 2026. Terms get revised, so check yours against the current version before you act on anything.
Rather have loft conversion leads that are yours alone?
That's what we do. We don't sell leads. We build the website and run the Google Ads that bring loft conversion customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingBuying the click yourself
Sellers pay nearly as much to reach you as the dearest homeowner search costs.
Loft firms searching for a seller type "loft conversion leads" about 10 times a month. Google shows no average click price for it, but advertisers bid up to £30.03 for the top of the page, just under the £31.83 a homeowner's "loft conversion contractors" click costs. The cheapest homeowner search here is "velux loft conversion" at £4.26. We turn clicks into leads with WordStream's figure of 7.33% for home improvement search ads, which comes from American campaigns, so take the last column as a guide rather than a promise.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click | Per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| loft conversion contractors | 50 | £31.83 | £434 |
| loft conversion builders | 210 | £20.67 | £282 |
| loft conversion quote | 170 | £19.88 | £271 |
| loft conversion companies | 880 | £18.36 | £250 |
| loft conversion companies near me | 720 | £13.81 | £188 |
| loft conversion specialists near me | 320 | £13.70 | £187 |
| l shaped dormer loft conversion | 210 | £12.10 | £165 |
| loft conversion specialists | 590 | £10.62 | £145 |
| loft extension | 1,600 | £9.96 | £136 |
| loft conversion near me | 2,400 | £9.59 | £131 |
| mansard loft conversion | 1,900 | £8.83 | £120 |
| hip to gable loft conversion | 2,900 | £7.67 | £105 |
| dormer loft conversion | 5,400 | £6.11 | £83 |
| velux loft conversion | 1,900 | £4.26 | £58 |
Figures from Google's UK keyword data on 25 September 2026. A click price here is Google's estimate from what advertisers bid, and plenty of them end up paying less. Monthly searches are averages over a year, and September 2025 lifted three of them: "loft conversion companies" reached 2,900, "loft conversion specialists" reached 2,400, "loft conversion builders" reached 1,000 that month.
That puts a lead from your own ads at £58 to £434. None of these searches beats Leads.work's £49 on price alone. Even the dearest search adds about £1,156 to each won £50,000 dormer, 2.3% of the job, and here's what that buys:
- A homeowner who went looking for a loft firm
- Your number, not a list of five
- Ads for dormers and mansards, not boarding
- Only the postcodes you want to work in
- Clicks billed by Google, no markup
- An ad account that stays in your name
"dormer loft conversion" is the busiest of these at 5,400 searches a month and £6.11 a click, about £83 a lead. Google's UK Local Services Ads have no loft conversion category; the nearest is general contractor, covered in our builder leads guide. How big the monthly budget should be is answered in how much to spend on Google Ads.
Planning, party walls and building control
The law puts weeks between the signature and the first steel.
None of these waits is long on its own. Together they're why a loft lead bought in the autumn can be a job in the spring, and why the follow-up matters as much as the first call.
Permitted development has a volume cap
Under Class B of the permitted development order, a loft can add up to 40 cubic metres to the original roof space on a terraced house and 50 on other houses. Earlier roof extensions count against that, whether they had permission or not. The work can't go above the ridge, can't push out past the front roof slope facing the road, and can't include a balcony. Side windows must be obscure glazed, opening only above 1.7 metres.
Some houses don't get the right at all
The Planning Portal lists flats, and houses in a conservation area, a National Park, an area of outstanding natural beauty, the Broads or a World Heritage Site. There, or over the limits, the homeowner needs householder planning permission. It adds that a Juliet balcony, with no platform, would normally still count as permitted development.
A certificate the council has 8 weeks to decide
A lawful development certificate confirms a loft doesn't need planning permission. It isn't compulsory, it costs a fee, and the homeowner can appeal if the council hasn't decided within 8 weeks. BuildAlert says many hip-to-gable jobs still need either this or full planning permission, which is why they turn up in its planning data.
Two months' notice to next door
On a semi or a terrace, a loft can mean work on the shared wall. The government's guidance lists cutting into a party wall, making one taller and removing chimneys from one. A party structure notice has to reach the neighbour at least 2 months before that work starts, and lapses if the work hasn't begun within 12 months.
Silence from next door starts a dispute
A neighbour who hasn't agreed in writing within 14 days is treated as disagreeing, and a dispute is deemed to have started. From there it goes to one agreed surveyor, or one each plus a third, who draw up an award setting out what gets done, how, when and who pays, surveyors' fees included. Either side can appeal it at a county court within 14 days. The neighbour can't block lawful work. They can slow it.
Last in the queue, building control needs notice at least 2 days before you start, where the work goes through the council as a building notice or a full plans application. A loft always needs Building Regulations approval to become a room. Everything here applies in England; the Party Wall Act also covers Wales, and Scotland has rules of its own. Building work that grows the house outwards rather than upwards is in our builder leads guide.
What the job carries
The homeowner asked for a bedroom. The rules reach every floor below it.
A lead describes the room. The price has to cover the stair, the doors on the way down and a set of legal duties that land on you as the builder. None of this appears on a lead form, and all of it belongs in the quote.
New doors on the stairs below
When a conversion creates a storey above 4.5 metres, Approved Document B wants the whole escape route dealt with: fire-resisting doors (E 20) and partitions (REI 30), upgrading existing doors where needed. The Planning Portal adds interlinked mains smoke alarms in the stairway on every level, because escaping through a window above the first floor is too dangerous.
A proper stair, with a loft allowance
Approved Document K wants 2 metres of headroom over a stair, but lets a loft conversion drop to 1.9 metres at the centre and 1.8 at the side. Alternating tread stairs and fixed ladders are allowed only for a loft with one habitable room and no space for a normal stair. Retractable ladders aren't normally acceptable.
A bat survey before the roof comes off
The government names "insulating or converting a loft" as work that can harm bats. Damaging a roost is an offence with up to 6 months in prison and an unlimited fine. If bats might be there, an expert survey comes first, and a Natural England licence if they can't be avoided.
The homeowner's duties become your duties
Since 1 October 2023, Part 2A of the Building Regulations has given every project a client with duties to plan, manage and monitor it. When the client is a homeowner and you're the only contractor, those duties are carried out by you; with more than one contractor, by the principal contractor. You mustn't start until you're satisfied the homeowner knows what they owe, and at the end, within 5 days, the completion notice to the council carries your signed statement that you met your Part 2A duties.
And the same again for health and safety
CDM 2015 works the same way: a homeowner's client duties pass to the contractor, or the principal contractor where there's more than one. The HSE says every project needs a construction phase plan, and it needn't be complicated. Its loft conversion sheet warns that a house built before 2000 may contain asbestos and a survey will show whether it has to come out first.
If the job is loft insulation and not a room, the leads and rules are in our insulation leads guide.
Through the year
Lofts get planned in autumn and built months later.
UK searches for "loft conversion near me" hit 4,400 a month in September 2025 and 3,600 in January 2026, then fell to 1,600 in May 2026, about 2.8 times lower. The busy months for finding a loft firm are the quiet months for building one, which fits the waits above.
UK searches for "loft conversion near me", by month
September 2025 to August 2026. Google Ads keyword data, in Google's rounded bands.
The planning questions come first
"loft conversion planning permission" ran at 1,900 a month from September 2025 to November 2025 and fell to 590 by August 2026. Someone asking that in October is working out the paperwork, and their start date is still months off.
Keep the autumn leads warm
PlanWatch's line that homeowners pick "whoever surveys first once consent lands" is its own claim, but the logic holds for any lead. Survey early, send the drawings, and stay in touch until the notices have run.
Before you sign, and before you pay
Drawings done in the first fortnight can go unpaid.
Sign a loft contract at the homeowner's kitchen table and they can cancel it within 14 days without giving a reason. Leave out the written notice of that right and the window can stretch by up to 12 months.
The part that bites a design-and-build loft firm is regulation 36. You mustn't start the service inside those 14 days unless the homeowner asks you to in writing. If they asked and then cancel, they pay a proportion of what you've done. If they didn't ask, or you never gave them the cancellation notice, they pay nothing for the survey or drawings you've already done. Get the request on paper or by email before anyone picks up a pen.
Checking where a bought lead came from
The ICO puts the duty on the buyer: proportionate checks and due diligence of your own, because a seller's assurance on its own isn't enough. Consent passed on for email or text has to name your firm, and it shouldn't be relied on once it's 6 months old, which matters on a job that takes that long to start.
In January 2024 the ICO fined Skean Homes £100,000 for more than 600,000 home improvement calls to people on the Telephone Preference Service. It blamed its lead generation provider; the ICO found no evidence anyone else was using its numbers.
Before paying for loft leads, ask the seller:
- Which website did the homeowner use?
- Is my firm named in the consent?
- How many other loft firms receive it?
- Is the house in England or Wales?
- Can I return a boarding-only job?
Keep the answers with each lead. If the ICO ever asks what checks you made, that record is your answer.
Which way to go
Cheap leads, long waits, and a quote that has to cover the whole house.
Buy leads if
- You can survey within days
- The seller caps who else gets it
- You follow up for months
- Returns are allowed on non-lofts
Think twice if
- Five firms see every lead
- The list mixes boarding with dormers
- Some leads fall under Scottish rules
- The consent is months old
Run your own if
- You want the call to yourself
- You want dormers, not boarding
- You want September and January
- Your account, kept if you leave
Whichever way the leads come, a loft is won over the months the paperwork takes, not on the first call. Re-roofing without a room is in our roofing leads guide, and how leads are sold across every trade is in our guide to trade leads.
Our sources
Where each price and rule on this page came from.
We make money building websites and running Google Ads for trades, so we have an interest in how this comes out. That's why every seller is quoted from its own pages, and why the tables show a bought lead coming in cheaper than one from your own ads.
Every seller quote was copied from that seller's own website, most recently on 25 September 2026. The keyword figures come from a pull of Google's UK advertising data on 25 September 2026. Job prices and build times come from Checkatrade's loft conversion cost guide. The planning rules come from the General Permitted Development Order 2015 and the Planning Portal; party walls from the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 and gov.uk; the building rules from the Building Regulations 2010, Approved Document B, Approved Document K, CDM 2015 and the HSE; bats from Natural England and Defra; and cancellation from the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013.
Questions loft firms ask
Loft conversion leads, the questions that come up most.
- What does a loft conversion lead cost?
- Leads.work prints its prices: £49 plus VAT for a loft conversion lead and £84 for a roof room, plus an £11 weekly fee. PlanWatch sells a monthly list of loft planning applications for £149, and BuildAlert charges £2 a letter to write to them. MyBuilder, Leads Everyday and AceLeads publish no loft price. A homeowner's click on a loft search costs £4.26 to £31.83 in Google Ads.
- How many other firms get the same loft lead?
- It depends on the seller. Leads.work says 1 to 3 others usually compete, never more than 5. MyBuilder lets several trades express interest and the homeowner shortlists. AceLeads sells some leads to one firm and some to a small group. Zapo, Get Work and Leads Everyday say theirs go to you alone, and PlanWatch sells each patch to one loft firm, though BuildAlert points out that planning applications are public for anyone to find.
- How long before a loft conversion lead turns into a job?
- It can take months. If the loft works on a shared wall, the neighbour must get a party structure notice at least 2 months before that work starts, and has 14 days to agree before a dispute is assumed and surveyors get involved. A lawful development certificate, if the homeowner wants one, can take the council 8 weeks. Building control needs 2 days' notice before you start. Checkatrade puts the build itself at 4-6 weeks for a Velux conversion and 10-12 for a dormer.
- Can a loft conversion go ahead without planning permission?
- Often, under permitted development. The roof space can grow by up to 40 cubic metres on a terraced house and 50 on other houses, counting any earlier roof extension. It can't rise above the ridge, push out beyond the front roof slope facing the road, or add a balcony, and side windows must be obscure glazed. Flats and houses in conservation areas or National Parks don't get the right, and neither does a house whose roof allowance has been used up.
- Does a loft conversion need a party wall notice?
- Where the work cuts into or raises a party wall, yes. The government lists cutting into a party wall, making one taller and removing chimneys from one as work you must tell the neighbour about. The notice goes in at least 2 months before the work, and the neighbour can't stop lawful work but can shape how and when it happens. The rules cover England and Wales; Scotland runs its own.
- Who is the principal contractor on a loft conversion for a homeowner?
- If you're the only contractor, you are, and the homeowner's client duties under both the Building Regulations and CDM 2015 pass to you. With more than one contractor, they fall to the principal contractor, or to the principal designer if agreed in writing. You must not start until you're satisfied the homeowner knows their duties, and at the end the completion notice to council building control carries your signed statement that you met yours.
- When do people search for a loft conversion?
- UK searches for "loft conversion near me" reached 4,400 a month in September 2025, 3,600 in January 2026, and dropped to 1,600 in May 2026. Searches about loft planning permission were highest from September to November 2025 and lowest in August 2026, so much of the year's demand is being planned in the autumn for a start months later.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
Loft surveys booked by homeowners who went looking for your firm.
We build your website and run Google Ads in an account in your own name, aimed at the dormers, hip-to-gables and mansards you want to build, in the postcodes you work. Check the price, then tell us which lofts you want and where, and we'll set the ads up around that.