Not so much the cost of an architect but the % they charge that bowled me over!

So 3.75% (15% of 25)?

Was there no discussion or agreement up front between ye about fees?

Read the post again, it is for the initial discussion. There are also fees during the build.

Apologies I didn't realise you meant the cost was 15%, and you had to pay in 4 installments of 25% each. I thought the net charge was 3.75% and was wondering why you described it as 25% of 15%.

For 2%, I'd be confident that you didn't have a architect produce a bespoke one-off house and offer the full scope. Most likely a engineer-architects getting planning for a set of plans, and sign off at stages. That perfectly fine if that's what you wanted, but they are very different services and not really fair to compare imo.

That's the normal and correct way to calculate it. And also how it was done in the OP.

Lump sum and hourly rates are also valid methods. Neither should be particularly cheaper or more expensive for the same service.

The "typical" % based fee has historically be 10%. But larger or simpler projects, will be more economical. For very small projects, it could and should go up slightly.

A large commercial project might be 2%. Even across houses. Could be 7-10% depending on pretty standard vrs very complex. A extension tends to be more work on an area or cost basis, so I'd expect them to be 8-15%. With 15% being for very small but complex urban extensions.

With no other info about your project, I'd day 15% is high, should be standard range if its in the standard level of detail.

25% is the normal percentage charge for the initial design. But what you describe is not what I would called a complete initial design. Should be some form of a survey, concept, options. Feedback. Discussion about planning, budget, costs, etc. Precedent images, example imagery, what you like, don't like etc. This is a hugely important phase in the process. One that most people offering services in Ireland try to breeze past, and copy and paste what ever works.

There are two explanations that make sense, he continued to work post sketches, and is charging for that time (reasonable), he is trying to lock you into the rest of the phase, and/or get paid regardless (unreasonable),

This is not your mistake. This is his mistake. Fees should have been discuss after your site briefing. Most importantly, then need to be agreed, ideally in writing. He is basically working with out a contract. Pretty foolish.

I would go back to him and say that the overall fee (15%) is higher than you expected, and wasn't agreed to. Tell him you'd like to proceed with the project, but you have concerns about the budget, which you are hoping he can assist with. Suggest that once fees are agreed, you sign and contract with a outline descriptions of services.

If he gets the hump (he might), calmly state you've no intention of stiffing him and will gladly pay for his time.

Hi Mellor, no it is a fully custom one-off house. I actually rechecked the pricing now as I just guessed in my previous post and its closer to 1.5% than 2% based on an estimating the final build cost - that's for a full service right up to final sign-off. Our architect is RIAI registered not an engineer or technician. We went to him with our ideas and he produced a first draft based on that. We went through multiple iterations over the course of nearly a year (slightly impacted by covid time wise) before finalising on a design for planning.

Its a small local practice that generally only does one-off houses or very small projects rather than a larger place with lots of wages to pay.

It's doesn't incentivize wasting money. But I understand why you would think that. Typically workload scales with cost of a project. It's simply used as a guide. You don't actually hand over a 10% tax on every payment to the builder, fees should be locked in advance based on the budget.

But if the budget changes drastically, so would workload and the % fee model covers that.

It's great that you seem happy with the service. But we are probably talking about different levels of full service. Concept iterations, and a design for planning, is about half away. For me a full service would include tender package, construction drawings, contract administration, site supervision. If you didn't need that, no issue. 1.5-2% for what you describe is great.

Say build coast was 300k, 1.5% would be 4.5k, it's simply not possible to do the above for that, even with zero overheads.

Or maybe I'm wrong and he not in it for the money, or insanely efficient. 😅

But they don’t increase their costs every time the build cost increases. In our case, we met the architect and discussed the project. Then, based on that discussion, they sent an estimate of the total cost and fees based on that estimate. Those are the fees we pay, even if the project goes over because we get more expensive floors/kitchen etc. Or if building prices go up, or even if we change the layout. If we started adding a lot of complicated details that require them to spend a lot more time on the project, then they could up the fees (which is reasonable) but they’ve told us that’s uncommon.

Those decisions aren’t the architects to make. They don’t control the budget. They can suggest materials, but the decision is the clients. At that point they should compare to the allowance. If the budget allow carpet, changing to timber floor during construction, they should be aware - and made aware, that this is an increase on the allowance.

A column verses cantilever is a pretty big design change. I don’t think it’s fair to present one as a meaningless waste. The latter requires a lot more work and detailing toget right. That design change and time should be paid for.

as mention, not every single increase will be factored in. Trivial stuff will be let pass. The point of % based fee to to recognise scope creep. It’s very hard to get paid for scope creep under a lump sum, unless the design is frozen, which isn’t great imo.

Working in IT, how you you see a similar scale job being billed? Very curious as to what better alternative you have.

In an IT services contract we'd issue a quote/tender response based on a number of days work at an agreed daily rate (based on the detail outlined in the tender being responded to or an initial consultation meeting with the client). The time taken to prepare the response to tender or meet with the prospective client up to this point wouldn't be chargeable, just a cost of doing business.

If the quote is accepted we'd do a detailed project plan with the client outlining the scope of works and days/hours required for each task within the project to lock down the specification. Any change to scope after this point which affects the no of days would lead to a change control that would trigger additional billing at the same daily rate as the original contract.

I don’t think the cost of responding to a tender is ever chargeable. I don’t think IT is a special case there.

So your criticism of % based fee is that it encourages bloating costs. But do you not see the obvious parallel with time based fees? In that they encourage bloating of the time spent. Every change is carte blanche to claim it takes a bit longer and charge more. That is why the % system came about, as projects scope almost always changes and there needed to be a way to quantify the s open at A and B.

In cases where the scope is fixed. The fee is fixed.

But it’s not their decision to include the cantilever or the curved glass. If the agreed budget is €xxx,xxx, and those elements are a design change that’s adds €50,000 on top. It’s the clients decision to proceed or not. It’s like an IT client deciding to add a more work to your scope.

If they are produced by the architect from the get go, over the budget, under their agreed fee. They don’t get to charge more.

With the second example, if somebody has a budget if 500k. They would translate to a area and level of finish. Their would be a fee agreed for the work. Let’s say though economical selections you can save the client 50k with no redesign. There’s no change in scope. The fee doesn’t get smaller as the scope hasn’t changed.

As I said, The % is used as a guide to agree a fee for a rough scope. If they over design, they don’t get paid more - the fee was agreed. They get paid more where the client makes changes they increase costs (and thus scope)