Price for drawing plans for an extension?

jamtart6

Hello me again!

Just wondering what price I should be paying for plans to be drawn for my extension. It is single storey ~ 24ft x 10ft.

Quotes so far:

• £350
• £450
• £540
• £750

All of these exclude (a) costs of planning permission (b) building regs (c) site inspections.

So I can't see why they are wildly different?

Is it best to go with a planner or an architect? Some are listed as both some just as planners some just as architects.

Any advice gratefully received

Biggie

Are the plans just for planning Permission (i.e outline) or are they full building regs or both.

You are advised to get building regs and planning permission may or may not be needed depending on it it falls under permitted development.

jamtart6

we are in an area where permitted development rights has been removed. So although the extension is quite small, we need planning permission.

Do we need different plans? I'm a bit confused about it all, especially as we only found out half way through that we needed planning permission. The first 2 planners I spoke to said we didn't, but one checked with the council and found out about the permitted development rights.

Biggie

Have a look at your council web site as with some you can check if your property falls under a conservation area (i.e permitted development rights removed)

They should also detail whats allowed under permitted developement.


If planning permission is required then Architect\planner will need to draw full plans of your house with proposed and existing drawings.

Building regs are detailed plans to say how a building will be constructed builders user them as a guide and you can get the council to approve them as well which is basically just a stamp to say "if constructed accorrding to these plans then we will grant building regs".

jamtart6

I think they quoted building regs on top of all the prices in my original post of about £400 extra.

What I'm wondering is, why do the fees for drawing plans vary from £350-£750 when none include planning perm/building regs?

Biggie

jamtart6 wrote: »

What I'm wondering is, why do the fees for drawing plans vary from £350-£750 when none include planning perm/building regs?

Slightly confused here if the plans don't include planning perm/building regs then which plans are they drawing for you

Also another thing to check is if they are going to charge you for amendements, I got stung by this as an Artchitect kept charging me each time the planning dept rejected the plans and requested amendements.

My 2nd architect charged me a fixed fee which included all the amendements required.

Some architects do manual drawaings and other use Autocad (PC), personallly I prefer an architect who uses autocad as changes are much easier and quicker.

jamtart6

thanks for the tip Biggie.

I'm slightly confused too!!

I think they are charging for drawing the plans, the actual drawings.

Then the council charge for inspecting building regulations, and the planning fee.

So we are paying £350-£750 (depending who we go with) for the drawings. I don't know why the fees for drawings vary so much!?

Biggie

jamtart6 wrote: »

Then the council charge for inspecting building regulations, and the planning fee.

This is normal as they are considered your costs getting them approved.

You will also have to pay for actual inspection to the council once the build starts and that can be £800 upwards :eek:

I'm not sure why the actual quote vary so much either may be worth asking the folllowing:-

1) Are the plans just for PP ?
2) Will they charge for amendements if rejected by the council
3) Do they use autocad
4) Will they have any envolvement once the work commences ? (This is normally an additional service)

jamtart6

thanks Biggie, I'll get back onto them all. Yikes, I thought PP was £150 and building regs and inspection was £400. Apparently not!

planning_officer

Biggie wrote: »

Have a look at your council web site as with some you can check if your property falls under a conservation area (i.e permitted development rights removed)

Permitted development rights are not removed automatically in a conservation area - the Council have to serve an Article 4 Direction which removes specific classes of permitted development. It seems like that has happened in this case.

planning_officer

For a single storey extension I would use an architectural technician - perfectly competent to draw plans for such an extension and cheaper than an architect. This may be why some quotes are so different, if some are from architects and some from architectural technicians.