Architect fees .. advise please

Hi , i am living in the midlands and we are looking to add a two storey side extension to the house, with a single storey protruding into the garden area, as part of this we plan to open up the kitchen and dining room into this new area, move the kitchen and thus create a open plan dining / kitchen area, also we plan to open up the stair well , in total the extension size is approx 45sqm, plus we have a flat roof which we want to extend one of our back bedrooms onto, this will mean remodeling the current roof layout ( removing 2 flat roofs with gables )



A architect visited spent 2 hours discussing our plans and has come back with the following quote, it seems a bit high to me so would appreciate any comments



Measure and create house "as is" drawings ( scale 1:50) £650



Prepare 1:50 sketch design drawings of new design (ground & first floor with fornt and rear elevations) £275



Prepare overall scheme level drawings for basis of planning applic ( ground floor first floor , roof plan 1:50 and front elevation,rear elevation and cross sections £910



Prepare more detailed drawings incl 1:20 scale to enable building reg approval (A1 size) £875



All these are plus vat , does not include fees to council or structural eng fees



Thanks for taking the time to look ... hope to hear from you

Is this an Architect with a capital A or just a technician or similar?

Although high, they may be reasonable fees for an Architect

But really, I'd say you should be paying no more than £900 total .... for plans for planning permission, b/regs and for the builder to quote off.

Other LA and engineer fees will be extra

Thanks for the reply , yes this is for an architect , a very experienced one

Oh God not again! Get some more quotes from a technician, you'll find them in Yell under Architectural Technologists. He does sound about twice the price overall than you could get it for. I'd prob charge around £1000-1200 for the planning & regs + any other fees ie engineer, LA fees etc as there's a fair amount of buggeration involved.

seems reasonable.. there's a lot of time goes into those drawings...
thoug £875 for "more detailed drawings" seems a bit steep.. you can just add more detail to the existing CAD drawings and then scale it for A1 paper.., it's not like you have to draught it all again at a different scale with a pencil and rule..

ColJack said:

you can just add more detail to the existing CAD drawings and then scale it for A1 paper.., it's not like you have to draught it all again at a different scale with a pencil and rule..

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Thats right, you just press F5 and it does it all for you!

Don't worry, thats a Architect/technician joke!

The CAD drawings are nothing.

You pay for the design - for working out what will pass planning and look nice, for determining best use of space and layout, for specifying a good but economical build, for accurate measuring and providing enough detail for the builders to price off without needing to guess and charge daywork for altering things which don't work out to plan

Anyone can draw a square with a triangle on top, but not many can actually design and specify

The OPs guy is duplicating work and fees - prepare existing plans and prepare proposed design is being charged. Then another charge for preparing planning design .... does this not consist of existing and proposed plans?

Then another equal charge for b/regs drawings when in fact most of the work is already done at the planning stage - ie the same drawings with just more detail. Also, some b/regs work has to be done at the planning stage to confirm that the thing can actually be built

Get more quotes

I am currently getting plans drawn for a two storey extension, Cotswold Surveyors (Cheltenham) have said it'll be £1000, iincluding planning application. If planning declines, it'll be £250 for each further application.

Dit said:

If planning declines, it'll be £250 for each further application.

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Approval can't be guaranteed 100%, but the agent should be designing in accordance with the local planning policy and getting some pre-application advice on any contencious issues.

So you don't want an application to be rejected on some stupid thing which the agent should have known about in the first place, and then charging for resubmission.

Really, any necessary changes to meet planners concerns should be done as the application is in, so that the subsequent approval is the only approval which was ever possible.

If an application is rejected then the next course of action should be an appeal based on the councils mis-interpretation of their own policy ... and not a re-submission of amended design which should have been sorted out by the agent before or during the planning application

sorry not been on this for a while - was out of work but have now got a job again - the industry seems to be picking up again thank goodness.
The fee sounds reasonable if the job is tricky and requires architectural input.

Its all very well being able to use CAD etc but that doesn't guarantee approvals. You only need to look on the planning portals to see the benefit of using an architect rather than a technician (a bad one anyway).

If its a bog standard box then yes, I'd agree that the fee is expensive and maybe a few other quotes should be sought.

I'd do the work (although not knowing much detail from your post) for around £1000 also (cash in hand (if I didn't have a day job)), however, you need to make sure that the person you use has the necessary insurances etc and a good track record (if he hasn't been recommended or you don't know him). Check the portal for your area to see who seems to get the best results.

Hope this helps.

A4H