--- title: "Building Plot Checklist: 40 Checks | Self Build Mentor" description: "Free building plot checklist: 40 checks on planning, access, services, title and cost. Print your appraisal and compare plots. No sign-up needed." --- SELF BUILD MENTOR|Plot Appraisal 0 of 40 answered See your appraisal → Free tool · no sign-up to use it # Is this plot worth offering on? Forty questions about one plot. Answer what you can, record the answers, and leave with a written list of what is still outstanding before you offer. **Before you start** #### Why bother A compromised plot is the one decision on a self build that no amount of money, design or mentoring fixes afterwards. Everything here is cheaper to find out before you offer than after you exchange. #### How long it takes Questions 1 to 10 are a desk job, done before you travel. Questions 11 to 24 you answer standing on the plot. The rest are for your solicitor and the utility companies, and those answers come back in weeks rather than minutes — so start them early rather than leaving them to the end. #### Answer the question where you can Most questions have a set of answers — pick the one that matches. A few want a real figure, like the distance to the transformer or the connection quote. The answers are what make this worth keeping and worth showing your solicitor. #### What the colours mean **Green — clear.** Answered, and nothing here stands in your way. **Amber — to answer before you offer.** Either you do not know yet, or the answer needs chasing. Each one tells you who to ask. **Red — could stop this plot.** Not simply a cost. Five questions are marked *Can kill it* because they are the ones that end purchases. Where a question has no set answer, mark it yourself with those three. That is the fallback, not the main event. #### Looking at more than one plot Fill in the plot's details below, then use **+ Another plot** to start a second set of answers. The **Compare plots** tab above puts them side by side — price, size, how much you have answered and how many questions are flagged — so you can see which one is actually ahead rather than which one you saw most recently. Everything stays on this device: nothing is sent anywhere, and closing the page does not lose it. **About this plot**Fill this in and the Compare tab does the rest. Plot name Location or postcode Asking price £ Plot size acresm² Listing or agent link The questions Your appraisal Compare plots ## Do these two things first This judges whether a plot suits your project. That only works if you already know what your project is. 1. **Write the brief.** A plot is not good or bad on its own — it is good or bad for a particular house. [Architect Brief Creator](https://info.selfbuildmentor.co.uk/architect-brief-creator?hsLang=en-gb) 2. **Work out the number.** Not what you can borrow — what the house you have described costs to build, on top of the plot. [Self Build Cost Calculator](https://info.selfbuildmentor.co.uk/initial-cost-calculator?hsLang=en-gb)