Any Advice please on paying an Architect and a pain of a Builder!

crumble_n_custard

Good morning I was wondering if anyone can advise please on this matter. We are planning some extension work on our house but want to delay as we are not that happy with our builder, and may wait until next spring or may even change our builder.

We had the Architect come and draw up some plans a couple of months ago who then took a month to get back to us with the drawn out plans. We think this long delay was due to the builder who also happens to be a friend of this Architect, so it was not our choice anyway, but we trusted them.

Our builder "seems" to be taking a lot of work on so takes forever to call us and its hard to pin him down. We even have a problem now wth his price as it has gone up quite a lot since the original price, so we took the plans to another builder who has since given us a cheaper price for the whole build. We are currently waiting for a meeting with our builder to discuss this whole matter, plus he still has £3000 deposit money from four months ago!
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The Architect has been on the phone this morning asking for payment ( its around £500) for the set of drawn plans that we have, and if we want him to submit them then it will be £765 in total.
I have an idea that our builder has told him that we have spoken to another builder and has suggested to basically get onto us for his fee. I am not in any way saying that this Architect won't get paid for his plans, quite the opposite, but I was under the impression that any of the fees are only paid when we decide we want to go ahead with the build, and submit them etc, be it now or in a couple of months time.
I am totally fed up with the whole thing now, there is so much more that I want and need doing in our house. I would be grateful for any advice please!

System

It's a strange way to do it, normally you appoint the architect directly, and they would tell you when payment is due, I've never heard of a designer not getting paid until the client has decided to go ahead, as you normally wouldn't appoint someone to draw plans otherwise - unless you had agreed with them that they won't get paid until you decide whether to go ahead or not, I would say you should pay for the work done to date.
I would also suggest that you don't have an architect, but either a technician or unlicensed designer for the figures you have quoted...
Does it require planning permission or not? And are you doing a full plans submission or building notice?