Architects retention application fee

username01

Hi all, I need to apply for retention for minor works carried out to my house in the late 80's,to the front of the house. Not much done, porch was filled in with window and new door and converted the garage into a room. I'm putting the house up for sale and was told I'd need retention. I've an architect coming to the house tomorrow evening to look at the house and give a quote and time scale for the job. Its a detached 4 bedroom 2 storey house in an estate. Has anyone been through this before, how much will the architect charge? I'd like to have a couple of figures to use as a benchmark against his quote, I don't think I should just accept his price straight off? or should I? Has anyone any advice? Is there alot of work involved in retention?
I'd greatly appreciate any advice or feedback
Thank you in advance

sinnerboy

He will need to submit measured floor layouts and elevations of your house together with the elevations front and rear of the houses to either side. About 2 days work if he's fast. Then about another day to pull the application together i.e. OS Maps , Advert , Site notice and application form. So about 24 hours.

So at €25 hr €600 at €30 hr €720 and so on. He may or may not be VAT registered so add 21% if so.

Then other costs

The OS Maps cost about €60
Advert - about €150
Printing costs maybe €25
The fee to the local authority
http://www.meath.ie/LocalAuthorities/Planning/PlanningPermissionApplicationFees/File,1160,en.pdf


However you may not need to go through this process. The Architect will advise if he can issue you with a Certificate of Exemption . Your case sounds like this is a maybe. Expect to pay around €400.00 . Check first that the vendors side will accept this.

muffler

Im always going to disagree with sinnerboy on the fees but I think you could get it done for less than that if you shop around and providing you need it.

As mentioned above there is a chance that the works may be exempt but without knowing the full details it would be impossible to confirm this. In any event I wouldn't want to raise your hopes on the exemption as it may not materialise

A Country Voice

Hi OP,
What we usually do in our office is treat the house plans part of the job seperatly from the application itself.
If you needed a house design for a new build you'd be looking at around 1000 euro. As its a measured survey and drawing it up, you'd normally get away with around 600-700 depending on size of house and distance for us to travel.
To put together the planning application itself then would usually cost in or around 500 - 600 euro on top of that.
Both figures would be plus 21% Vat.
County council fee for what you're talking about sounds like class 2(A) retention 102 euro. Newspaper, usually around here its around 50 euro. O.S. Maps would be included.
This is all IF you need planning. You may not need planning at all. That would have to be checked out.
One tip for you though. There may be building plans of the original house on a planning file with the Planning Section of your local authority. If you had these for the architect/engineer it would cut his workload and cost by a good bit I should think.

A Country Voice

muffler

A Country Voice wrote: »

To put together the planning application itself then would usually cost in or around 500 - 600 euro on top of that.

Nearly spat my cocoa over the keyboard.

BryanF

username01 wrote: »

Hi all, I need to apply for retention for minor works carried out to my house in the late 80's,to the front of the house. Not much done, porch was filled in with window and new door and converted the garage into a room. I'm putting the house up for sale and was told I'd need retention. I've an architect coming to the house tomorrow evening to look at the house and give a quote and time scale for the job. Its a detached 4 bedroom 2 storey house in an estate. Has anyone been through this before, how much will the architect charge? I'd like to have a couple of figures to use as a benchmark against his quote, I don't think I should just accept his price straight off? or should I? Has anyone any advice? Is there alot of work involved in retention?
I'd greatly appreciate any advice or feedback
Thank you in advance

you answered your own question get 3 archs to qoute, everyone here is guessing as we dont know the changes or the house.

rayjdav

I'm off to me dungeon to revise my fee structure:D:D:D
I'm not at the races, AT ALL;)

sinnerboy

Care to elaborate?

A Country Voice

muffler wrote: »

Nearly spat my cocoa over the keyboard.

why?

A Country Voice

muffler

A Country Voice wrote: »

To put together the planning application itself then would usually cost in or around 500 - 600 euro on top of that.

muffler wrote: »

Nearly spat my cocoa over the keyboard.

A Country Voice wrote: »

why?

Because that is a ridiculous amount of money to charge for that scale of a project.

Good luck to you if you can get it.

archtech

Sinnerboy's fees wouldn't be a mile off the mark. Although the cost of the newspaper advert would be far less if one went with a local paper in my area (bit of a price war at the moment between the local rags, one will do all planning ads for €36 no matter the number of words) .

While obtaining retention permission would clear up an ambiguities whether permission is need or not, there is a possibility that it may not be needed, A check of the original planning permission would be a good start, (You will most properly need a copy of it anyway for any sale) Another option is to seek a Section 5 Declaration of Exempted development from the Planning Authority.

A Country Voice

We dont know what the scale of the project is.
Maybe we're talking about apples and oranges?
Thats a typical kind of fee for a one off house type project.
Naturally for a minor application it would probably be less but not by a whole pile.
The standard project would include:
Location Maps, Site Layouts, Landscape Design, Site Level Survey, Design Statement, Sorting out the Public Notices, Liasing with the client several times, probable pre-planning meeting, 2-3 site visits prior to lodging the application, wastewater system design, possibly dealing with utility companies traversing a site, the list is endless.

It takes a lot of work by a trained and experienced professional to put together a PROPER, ACCURATE, COMPLETE, and VALID, planning application.
I don't think describing what anybody does as ridiculous is helpful at all.
My clients obviously don't agree as I've got six files on my desk at the moment, and a few more in the pipeline.

Compare the work of a site suitability assessor. Desk study I'd estimate 2-3 hours. On site testing, supposedly approximately 6 hours over two days minimum, they usually take about 2 in my experience. Prep of report maybe another 2 hours at a stretch. They all charge around 500-600 plus vat around here.
Theres definitely more time and effort put into a planning application than that.

Anyway, thats my rant for today.
Thanks for taking the time to have a read, and a look into my world

A Country Voice

muffler

A Country Voice wrote: »

The standard project would include:
Location Maps, Site Layouts, Landscape Design, Site Level Survey, Design Statement, Sorting out the Public Notices, Liasing with the client several times, probable pre-planning meeting, 2-3 site visits prior to lodging the application, wastewater system design, possibly dealing with utility companies traversing a site, the list is endless.

I never commented on that so I fail to see why you felt the need to post it.


However I did comment on this

A Country Voice wrote: »

To put together the planning application itself then would usually cost in or around 500 - 600 euro on top of that.

I dont see a breakdown of what justifies that fee.

A Country Voice wrote: »

It takes a lot of work by a trained and experienced professional to put together a PROPER, ACCURATE, COMPLETE, and VALID, planning application.

It takes some work but certainly not "a lot of work". Are you suggesting that you are the only trained and experienced professional posting in this thread who is capable of submitting a valid planning application?

A Country Voice wrote: »

I don't think describing what anybody does as ridiculous is helpful at all.

I'd rather you didn't make accusations like this. I said your fee for preparing a planning application was ridiculous and not what you did so perhaps you would extend me the courtesy of withdrawing that comment.

A Country Voice wrote: »

My clients obviously don't agree as I've got six files on my desk at the moment, and a few more in the pipeline

Great. And as I said earlier...good luck to you.

A Country Voice wrote: »

Compare the work of a site suitability assessor. Desk study I'd estimate 2-3 hours. On site testing, supposedly approximately 6 hours over two days minimum, they usually take about 2 in my experience. Prep of report maybe another 2 hours at a stretch. They all charge around 500-600 plus vat around here.
Theres definitely more time and effort put into a planning application than that.

We aren't discussing their fees.

A Country Voice wrote: »

Anyway, thats my rant for today.
Thanks for taking the time to have a read, and a look into my world

You're welcome.


Can you tell us now how you can justify a fee of 500 - 600 Euro for preparing a planning application for "a one off house type project"

rayjdav

For me to elaborate too, basically refer to Mufflers response above.^
In a nutshell, those were my thoughts as I responded earlier.
Muffler and myself are, as it appears, obviously living in the wrong geographical locations when it comes to this discussion and others still have the opportunity to charge, and receive, "decent" fare for their services. Good to hear tbh.

To A country Voice, the OP was asking about fees for a retention of minor works to his house. Granted, if required, a measured survey of the existing house and all other associated items required to submit a Valid application, which as Muffler said is a bit of work, not a lot of work, to an experienced professional. I think the post has veered off from what the OP has initially asked, imho;)

My two cents......

A Country Voice

A Country Voice wrote: »

The standard project would include:
Location Maps, Site Layouts, Landscape Design, Site Level Survey, Design Statement, Sorting out the Public Notices, Liasing with the client several times, probable pre-planning meeting, 2-3 site visits prior to lodging the application, wastewater system design, possibly dealing with utility companies traversing a site, the list is endless.

I thought in my post it was clear enough that the standard rural one off house project would entail the above?? Thats what putting together the planning application is.
What would you charge for going through the tasks outlined above?

I don't think I have to justify my fees to anyone. They're fair and reasonable and you pay for what you get. The old monkeys and peanuts come to mind, (and no, in case anyone is a little bit sensitive I'm not calling anyone a monkey or a peanut for that matter!). I have no idea who anybody else posting here is. So, No I'm not saying, (nor have I ever said), that I'm the only person posting here who can do the job properly. Read back on the posts.

In relation to Site Assessors, you'll notice I said at the start of that "COMPARE" This is a discussion isn't it? We are allowed to discuss the matter at hand?
What I was trying to illustrate was the amount of work involved, compared with the amount of work involved for a similar amount of money, in the same kind of business field. Am I not allowed to use a comparison to illustarate my point?
As for withdrawing comments, I was told that my fee structure, which I view as a very fundamental part of my business was "ridiculous" So you can go jump whereever you like on that one.

Seriously though, I hope you're busy enough in your neck of the woods. Tough times these days.

A Country Voice

Poor Uncle Tom

Deep breaths and cool heads people.

Nobody was asked to quote for the above job, just to give an idea of the costs involved. Obviously, surveying the existing site and works could take an hour or it could take a day, the same could be said for the drawings involved, please keep tempers in check,....

I'd hate to have to ban the lot of you.....:p (or would I ?)

martinn123

Poor Uncle Tom wrote: »

Deep breaths and cool heads people.
please keep tempers in check,....

I'd hate to have to ban the lot of you.....:p (or would I ?)

Fight, Fight.

Poor Uncle Tom

martinn123 wrote: »

Fight, Fight.

/right, time for you to walk the plank....