Architects Fees up to planning

Hi
Am looking for permission to build house in Munster. Wanted something different so decided to go with architect. Agreed on fee up to planning. All invoices were paid. We have to resubmit a different design as his design was unacceptable to council. Now he is invoicing me for all this extra work on top of the 20k I have paid already. Should this extra work be part of original agreed fee up to planning? Don't fancy paying out any more as could end up with a lot of fancy drawings and no planning permission. He is very good but all this extra work is going to be very expensvie and I think should be part of original agreed fee up to planning. I don't want to be too confrontational with him at minute as we are at a delicate stage with council. Any thoughts?

Firstly I think 20K is a very high for a fee up to planning.

When I was building I agreed a fee up to getting planning not just submitting for approval which seems to be the situation you are in. That's ridiculous. Your architect should be aware of the county development plan, planning guidelines etc. etc. for the area you are hoping to build in and it is up to him to get you through planning.

I wouldn't have paid over that much of the fee until planning had been granted. Possibly a small portion on sketch drawings, and more on lodging the application but certainly holding back a large portion of the fee till approval was given.

Did you have a verbal or written contract? I would be very surprised if you have a wriiten contract to state that the agreed fee was up to lodging the application.

If you follow the route of paying the architect for additional work in getting through planning you are effectively handing him a blank cheque which you have no control over.

Wjc

I sympathise. I was in the exact same position (could even be the same architect!). Search for my thread on this.

After shelling out the same amount, pp was refused. We resubmitted with minor changes. Architect refused to quote in advance for the minor revised drawings. Charged us €10k. I told him I would give him a couple of grand. We settled between the two and I sacked him.

If you continue you are giving him a blank cheque. If you argue with him and he agrees a lower fee he will try to make it up elsewhere.

My advice would be sack him and go elsewhere. I know that it may cost you a bit but also get a townplanner as they are pretty cheap and worth their weight in gold.

20K is at least double the going rate for planning - unless ure building the Taj Mahal or something of that scale! Tell him hes overpaid already and should do the changes FOC.

There are similar threads on this type of topic. I suggest looking up the RIAI fee surveys to get a feel for whether you think you are being over charged - it is impossible to say that 20k is outright too much for planning as we do not know the nature or extent of what's being planned, we also don't know what type of architect this is. To use an analogy - you can't say that 20k for a car is a rip off without knowing what type of car it is - it's brilliant value for a brand new BMW or Aston Martin, but poor value for a 20yr old mini etc.

Secondly - it does not make sense for someone to assume the risk of a 3rd party - in this case the planning authority. It is NOT the architect's responsibility to achieve a grant of permission, it is only to submit a design that the client is happy with in a format that may be determined a VALID planning application. It is the industry norm to charge for substantial Further Information requests.

I suggest examining the Terms of Engagement to which you signed up under your Client - Architect Agreement. The RIAI standard terms of engagement and agreement may be found on-line.

Architects, like most businesses, don't charge a bucket of money for something and then try and get away with it - there is open competition in the market place and generally services are priced in and around their cost to carry out. So if the application cost 20k, then odds are in wages, insurances, capital, office maintenance pensions etc etc - that that application cost the architect 20k to produce. The typical profit margins in construction are between 3 and 5% - so, if a whack of Further information comes in - unless you expect your consultants to do it at their own cost...they need to be paid to do it.

And finally - in terms of cost/time, architect's are the cheapest of the construction professionals.

An architect should be familiar with planning procedures and in my opinion should advise the client on a design likely to be favoured by planners. That is part of the professional consultaion and one of the reasons surely that we engage the services of an architect. The planning authority is a 3rd party risk factor of whom the architect should have some control over by virtue of the fact of their knowldge of planning guidelines etc. etc. An architect should be the person that best advises the client on what is likely to be accepted. The architect should bear some of the risk. Mine did and I haven't heard of one that doesn't. The client however has to be reasonable also in accepting the opinion of the architect on what might be acceptable or not. Finally I'm afraid some architects do charge a bucket of money for what they provide. Thankfully there is competition in the marketplace and let it be a lesson to us all that we agree the terms and conditions in writing in advance.

No idea where you're getting those stage payment breakdowns from - they are not anywhere near the industry norm.

In short there are 4 phases; 1)Design, 2)planning, 3)tender and 4)construction. Each of these phases can be broken down into sub-phases depending on the size of the job.

I am familiar with jobs that have taken 4 and 5 years to get to planning and it would be quite common for projects to take up to a year to get to planning stage...not quite the 10% you suggest.

A simple extension to a standard semi-d type house would take a minimum of 40-60hours to get to planning stage. 200 hours is only 5 weeks work for one person, or just over 2 for two people...not long at all.

30% to 35% of the total fee is normally the stage fee to planning.

Architects do not assume the planning risk, as they do not have any gain when a client gets planning permission.

For instance, if a client gets planning permission for a house on a site, the site is immediately worth a lot more. This is the clients gain, not the architects, so it is the client's risk.

C