architectural design fees....are we being completely ripped off????

marc81

Recently had plans successfully approved for a side extension on our house (building work to commence in Oct). Architect fees were £600, this included drawing the plans, liaising with the council on our behalf, sorting application forms etc. and the plans did have to be changed a couple of times. On top of this we paid £140 to the architects structural engineer for steel calcs, planning permission fee of £175 to council, building regs fee of £175 again to council. Once the building work commences we will need to pay the council for the inspectors site visit fees which I think is £430. Hope this helps, we are also North West (Warrington).

System

marc81 wrote: »

Recently had plans successfully approved for a side extension on our house (building work to commence in Oct). Architect fees were £600, this included drawing the plans, liaising with the council on our behalf, sorting application forms etc. and the plans did have to be changed a couple of times. On top of this we paid £140 to the architects structural engineer for steel calcs, planning permission fee of £175 to council, building regs fee of £175 again to council. Once the building work commences we will need to pay the council for the inspectors site visit fees which I think is £430. Hope this helps, we are also North West (Warrington).

Presumably not a qualified, registered architect?

teneighty

the_r_sole wrote: »

what is your definition of "Fully Qualified" here?

RICS, CIOB, CIAT, ABE off the top of my head, lots of others.

marc81

the_r_sole wrote: »

Presumably not a qualified, registered architect?

Fully qualified. He's actually a partner in a large Building Surveyors and Property Consultants, just does a few smaller jobs like mine in his spare time.

System

marc81 wrote: »

Fully qualified. He's actually a partner in a large Building Surveyors and Property Consultants, just does a few smaller jobs like mine in his spare time.

His PI cover must be a lot cheaper than mine if he can make that cost work on a homer!

Hoploz

Check whether the fees quoted include the council planning fees, and also whether they include structural engineer costs. We had to pay extra for these on top of our architect fees when we did a similar size job. (I think the structural calculations were about £500 extra, this included the wrong lintel being designed, resulting in my builder having to cut a bit off it to make it actually fit in to the roof which the architect had helpfully drawn a different shape in one drawing compared to the other)

We extended 8m wide by 4m deep plus a small 3m square on the side also, double storey, so sounds quite similar scale to yours. It cost IRO £100k inc fitting but not buying the kitchen.

Yes we are in Surrey so an expensive area, but this was 2008 so a while ago now. There's no way you'll do two storeys that size for 50k.

Tbh I'd go with the architect you get along with better and think seems to be most on-the-ball listening to your brief. In the scale of things there's not a lot of difference, so as long as you check what is and isn't included just go with the best person. And preferably one who doesn't have a holiday booked while your project is happening.