Renovating an Apartment Abroad While You Live Somewhere Else

You can renovate an apartment in another country without living there, if three things are in place before the builders start: a complete design project with drawings and a specification, a local crew that quotes and builds from those drawings, and someone who checks each stage against them — on site or through photos and video. The owner's job becomes approving decisions, not making them on the phone.

Many of our clients bought property in Cyprus, Poland or elsewhere in Europe and live in a different country. Most of their worries are the same, and so are the answers.

What goes wrong when the owner is far away

Decisions by phone. The builder calls: where does the socket go, which tile, how high the mirror. You guess from a photo taken at an angle. Each guess is small. A hundred of them is your apartment.

Quotes you can't compare. Without drawings, every crew prices its own idea of the job. The cheapest quote is usually the one that left the most out.

Nobody notices until it's covered. A pipe in the wrong place is cheap to move before tiling and expensive after. If nobody looks at that stage, you find out on your next visit.

Materials chosen by availability. If the specification doesn't name it, the crew buys what the local shop has.

The setup that works

1. Design first, remotely

Everything is decided before demolition: layout, every material, every socket. The project is done over video calls. You approve visualizations of every room, then the drawings. See how a virtual design project works.

2. Measurements without you

The survey needs access, not your presence. In Cyprus and Poland (and in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi in Ukraine) our own team measures. Elsewhere, a checked local surveyor or the developer's as-built drawings.

3. Local crew, working from the album

Get quotes from at least two local crews against the same drawings. Make the album part of the construction contract: "built as drawn" becomes the standard.

4. Checks at each stage

• Online supervision, anywhere: the crew sends photos and video at agreed stages — after electrics, before tiling, before joinery — and the designer checks them against the drawings. We also answer the crew's questions directly, so you're not the go-between.
• On-site supervision in Cyprus, Poland and Ukraine.

5. Payments tied to stages

Pay the crew by completed stage, after it's checked. Not by calendar.

Cyprus: full service for owners who aren't there

In Cyprus we can take on the whole cycle: design, construction with local contractors, and furnishing. For owners who bought a flat in Limassol and live elsewhere, that means receiving a finished apartment instead of managing a building site from a distance. More on the Cyprus page.

Poland

In Poland we measure and supervise ourselves, work with local contractors, and come to meetings when needed. See the Warsaw page.

Your time, realistically

• Design stage (4–8 weeks for ~100 m²): about an hour a week for calls and approvals.
• Construction: short approvals when a stage is checked, and a decision when something unexpected turns up in the walls.
• Visits: optional.

What it costs

The design project: €35/m² for layouts and visualizations, €50/m² with drawings and specification, €80/m² with the first two months of support on site. An 80 m² apartment is €2,800–4,000 for the project. Construction is priced by local contractors. See pricing.

Frequently asked

Do I need to fly in for the start of works? No. Someone has to hand over the keys. It doesn't have to be you.

How do I know the crew is doing it right? Stage checks against the drawings. Photos and video from the crew, reviewed by the designer before the next stage covers the previous one.

Can I use a crew I already know? Yes. The drawings work with any competent crew.