Is it normal for an architect to design this much beyond budget? At this stage?

[Meforthree]

Has anyone used an architect for a full renovation project that can give us some advice? We have been in discussion with ours since before buying our property in South London in May. We were clear about budget for the renovation but when she presented us with her predicted costs they were literally nearly four times what we’d said.

We had a big conversation about how this could have happened, and she didn’t really explain that but said she did think we could do the works for just a bit over our original budget so we agreed to that and tried to move forward. But now six weeks later we are trying to really firm up how and what things may cost (she got a projected cost from a basement company that would eat up well over half our budget! For what it’s worth, other basement companies have told me it would be less) and she is now making noises that strongly suggest she is actually still designing speculatively and that we will reduce the scope of the project as and when if we need to. I just asked her outright in an email how it was she thought we could afford the rest of the works if the basement did indeed cost that and she still hasn’t properly answered. I’m so mad, she’s supposed to be designing (broadly speaking) to our budget! AND we’ve already had a serious conversation about this sort of thing..

Am I missing something? Is this normal?
And how easy would it be to switch architects at this point? We’ve already got a pre-app in and we were hoping to get everything moving enough to hit the ground with builders by end of January….

We did a full house renovation some years ago and it went really well.

Everything was fully priced.
Everything was fully on paper.
Our team were highly recommended and fully responsive.

The job hasn't begun and she isn't responding.
This is the best she is going to be.
This is where a tight contract is critical.

I would be asking for answers and pinning her to why she isn't answering and doesn't appear to adhering to the budget.

There are good architects out there but she doesn't sound like one.

I wouldn't allow anyone hang a shelf in my home without being highly recommended.

This has served me very well.
Start a paper trail now to prove the problems you are having with communication and start looking for someone else.

Clearly this is an enormous job of many hundreds of thousands.

Her incompetence could easily add a fortune to it.

Get ahead of this by also having every decision on fittings for the house picked out, lights, kitchen, bathroom, floors, handles, switches, colours, landscaping, the lot.
Having these comprehensively priced up, will give you a sense of the costs involved.

Those decisions come hard and fast, it really helps to know what you want.

Going over budget is normal. Going 4x over is not and is basically just ignoring the brief. This would really bother me and I would be looking to change architect.

We did a full renovation of a Tudor farmhouse, had a poor architect but stuck with him because it seemed too late to change. Have always regretted it and think we'd have had a better outcome for less money if we had switched as soon as we realised. It's not fun to have to change but this is a long term project and the wasted time/money will be as nothing to the money and time you'll waste down the line by using an architect who is not on the same page.

This.
DH has a construction business and he says about 90% of the time it's over designed, over budget and not realistic!

My point isn't that we need to know numbers, my point is questioning whether your expectations are out of sync because:

she's right and you can't do the work in your budget at all because you aren't aware of all the extra necessities

Or she's wrong and you can do the work much less expensively because she's budgeting for a Ferrari standard of materials when you only want a B&Q kitchen and bathroom fitted.

Huge extra costs come from doing the work legally and safety, like specially designed scaffolding with weekly checks, the design and then safe maintenance of the excavation work throughout the build, asbestos remove quickly goes into the tens of thousands.

It's important you see a breakdown of the costs as she's claiming them - not just the totted up figure.

Why is she saying its so high? Where is the bulk of the cost coming from?

Will she be acting as Principal Designer throughout the build? Does she understand her duties under CDM? Has she discussed this with you?

At 4 x the budget she is not listening to the brief. This is a bad sign this early on. Designing to the cost envelope is a fundamental requirement.

My limited experience with architects is that they come in two flavours

• practical and technical but not very imaginative
• imaginative and aspirational but not very practical

I tried to wrestle the practicalities out of our imaginative architect with limited success. In the end I had to pay for additional input.

Frankly I would just say to this one thanks but no thanks as you are clearly not on the same page, and find someone a bit more suited to your budget and needs.

I would change to someone who fits your brief - ask the local builder who he's worked with in the past.
If your architect has a reputation for "premium" but you're aiming for something more "family home" you're not working to the same objective and honestly you'll have this battle at every stage whether it's basements, lightening fixtures or even just taps! She may come with prestigious references or past work, but she sounds like she's not for you.

I told my favourite architect (listens to me, not just my husband) our budget and she told me that it was unrealistic and that she would expect one element to cost more than that. But she then told me what I could do instead and worked out a really good compromise. She is excellent but I have found it massively varies. I have spoke with other architects- again been up front about my total budget and they haven’t really engaged. I can now see that they have focused on their fees in their quotations rather than how much it will cost me to get the work done. I think it is a real skill as an architect to listen and it is not all architects who can.

I've been a QS for 40 years, and have worked with very few architects who understand, or are interested in, budgets.

But from your posts, I'd be more concerned about the communications you're having (or not, as it seems) - if they are this bad at answering questions now, she wont get better going forward. Look at the contract you have with her, and see if you can terminate that, and find another. And ask for recommendations from them from previous clients.

This is really helpful and interesting, thank you. Yes it’s the comms I’m most concerned by. I really thought once we’d had the conversation about the initial “whoops that came back 4x our budget!” Issue that we’d established some sense of how we needed now to really focus on that before moving forwards. But the fact that she is still being very vague about it all and not able to answer direct questions about “but how will the rest of the project work if the basement costs eat half our budget?” feels really worrying…

Hi OP,

I have done a full renovation with an architect as you are describing. The big difference is that my (now Ex) husband and I were both experienced project managers who could bring all our technical skills to make sure we did not run over budget.

There were a few Clear & Candid conversations very early on, and if you are conflict avoidant you are going to agree to stuff you don’t want and don’t want to pay for. I am not conflict avoidant. “That’s beautiful, is it in budget?” became my mantra.

It really sounds you are arse about face in terms of are you managing the architect or are they managing you. This is your house, your money, your project and you need to get on board with that ASAP. The architect will step into your role of Project Director if you don’t. The Project Director signs off on the money so make sure that is you.

You are already headed for a difficult project, and you need to be honest about your role in that. Changing architects will achieve zero if you don’t step up and do your part of the project.

@ThePM is bang on - project management is not for the faint hearted.

'rigged? Architects are bound by legislation that governs their professional conduct. They are registered and can be struck off the register like a Doctor if there is proven professional misconduct. The training is 7 years like a Solicitor, Doctor and due to the requirement to complete part 3 in a workplace it is extremely competitive. It is not really a profession you can be highly incompetent in due to the rigourous nature of becoming one- the wheat from the chaff happens early on!

IMO clients for domestic projects wholly forget that they are paying for the services of a highly qualified professional like a lawyer that is expensive!

My engineer husband does building regs applications and things like beam designs and not only do architects design things that are unnecessarily costly, they literally design things that are physical impossibilities, like roofs that don't fit together or rooms you can't stand up in. It seems like little more than picture-drawing to me. I'd get a chartered building surveyor to do it - someone who can see the project through the entire way, not pass it onto someone else for calculations.

ive been planning ideas for my own renovation project thats assuming i had the money, i would need around 10 million, with around £800,000 to buy the property then the rest for modernisation and then running costs for around 20 - 30 years as it was a decommissioned nursing home, in my home town, then to full bring it up to standards and add security eg doors, window shutters but on the inside, then cctv, then other areas it can add up depending on who and how you source your materials and labour from, me personally id prefer to do the full project management myself, study each company as i already know what i want upgrading first, then id use one company for each aspect eg one for security shutters, one for security doors internally, one for windows etc as id want the premiter to seem normal from outside but then like fort knox so to speak inside and im running costings myself so i know excatly whats what then i can adjust accordingly

this is the property id want assuming it comes back on the market : https://themovemarket.com/tools/propertyprices/glendale-house-255-tamworth-road-long-eaton-nottingham-ng10-1as

I know some great architects who definitely would work within budget. The project may go a bit over but 10-20% not 4x!

When we did an extension, the architect was very clear about what we could afford within budget and what our nice to have that would push us over would be.

I would definitely cut your losses and get someone else. Can you find someone to give you local recommendations?

Er- if you want actual 'design' rather than a perfunctory attempt at Architecture, then yes, by all means only employ an engineer.

Many people don't cut the biscuit when it comes to qualifying to be an Architect.

We did a massive and very expensive renovation a few years ago and I honestly don't think our architects had the foggiest notion of costs. As soon as the plans were done, we got three bids, chose one, brought in a QS and adjusted the build down to align more closely with our budget. Our QS was really the key player in driving communication. It really wasn't until that point that we had any idea of costs.

The big mistake we made was using one of the architects to project manage. I would not do that again.

Have you got a ball park figure on the extension as well?

We have recently completed a very large renovation project working with an architect and a building company. They have a history of working together and we are very familiar with some of their previous projects.

They are known to be very good communicators. And have been exceptional at sticking to our budget. We have unsurprisingly gone over our original budget, but that is because we have added new things and upgraded hardware, etc., as we’ve gone along not they have miscalculated.

I would not work with someone that is not able to communicate with you clearly and effectively.
We met with our architect and the site manager on a weekly basis for site visits. And so nothing has come as a surprise. I would never embark on a project like this with a company or individual that I had doubts about before the project even started. Good luck.

Dh was very annoying when our works were costed - he added about 30% to the costs limiting what we could do, I thought he was being miserable but he was on the money. We used all our contingency.

That’s interesting - why not? The architect we currently have makes a big deal of their project management credentials…

I felt like they were overly-invested in certain aspects and their communication style was very formal, as in even things that could have been a quick decision onsite needed a formal RFI and a formal answer before they could proceed. To be fair, our project was probably unusually difficult for several reasons - it started right as the first lockdown came into effect, so we were unable to do things like have weekly site meetings; we had chosen our builders specifically because they had worked seamlessly with our architects on other projects, and they fell out very badly during the build, and not even over our project; the house is listed and had more than the ordinary amount of restrictions so English Heritage was involved. I also think this particular architect was a genius in some ways but it might be understating things to say they didn't have great people skills

I have several friends who've also done large renovations and all of us agree that we wouldn't use our architects again as pms. In our case, when we replaced our first QS with a really good one who also had a pm background, things started to move much more seamlessly. He did things like figure out the average time between an RFI and receiving an answer and cut that right down to almost nothing. We still overspent, but a lot of that was that we kept raising the specs. The deeper in you get, the easier it is to say, why cut a corner here...