Paying for a garden office
When buying a garden office, in most cases, you will pay for it in stages. The timing and amounts will differ between companies, but you could expect the following pattern:
This could be anything up to 50% of the project cost. This allows the company to order the materials for your project and start the manufacturing process.
A few days prior to your agreed installation date, you will normally be asked to make a further payment. You could be asked to make the full balancing payment, or more commonly you will be asked to make a payment of up to 45% of the outstanding amount.
Once the installation team have completed their work you will be asked to pay the final instalment. This is usually a small amount such as 5%. You will pay this once you are happy all the work has been completed as expected. If there is something you are not satisfied with, you would hold back this payment until it is rectified.
Deposit protection
The first deposit payment where you are laying down a lot of money for your building to be manufactured, but don't as yet have any physical product, is the riskiest stage. To cover you, some companies offer insurance backed deposit guarantees. These protect you should the worst happen and the company you work with cease trading. There is a premium to be paid like any insurance policy. They do offer peace of mind, but do ask the company you are working with if the whole amount is covered. On larger projects, there can be a limit on the figure covered.
Some people choose to pay the deposit on a credit card as by doing so, purchases between £100 and £30,000 are covered by the credit card should there be a problem that the company won't fix or should your supplier go out of business. The Money Saving Expert explains this protection. You would need to be aware of the £30,000 limit though, many garden offices end up more expensive than this.
Finance for garden offices
Many of the more established names in the garden office industry offer finance options. These allow you to pay for your office over a number of months. From what we can see most of these packages are funded by Pegasus Personal Finance. Companies who have arrangements with Pegasus have links on their website to pages on the Pegasus website that have a cost calculator. These calculators will give you an idea of the monthly payments for the amount you will need to borrow
At the end of the day, this is a loan from the finance company rather than the company who is building your garden office. You will need to research your options and go into it with your eyes open. You may well find that taking money on your mortgage or a business loan offers a better interest rate
How about renting a garden office
Booths Garden Studios off the option to rent one of their offices. They offer as standard, yet well-specified designs, in three fixed sizes.
After an initial payment which covers delivery and installation. You then make monthly payments. If you keep the office for longer than 18 months there is no removal fee, should you choose to end the contract.
If you have a business which is VAT registered, you can reclaim the VAT amount of the rental. There may be other tax benefits to renting a garden office for business. Your account will be able to tell you about the benefits of renting a garden office.