To ask for a refund from architect

[ciele]

Spent a small fortune on putting in plans to council for a kitchen extension. We live in a conservation area and because neighbours have cut down huge amount of trees our house is now quite visible.
Anyway...the council have refused our plans for such a lot of basic reasons I think the architect guy must be incompetent.
AIBU to ask for money back?

What does your contract with him say?

Good question! I ll look!

It Is never a foregone conclusion, especially in a Conservation area. Did you expressly agree he should liaise with planning before developing the scheme? What were the grounds for refusal?

You may be able to ask for a refund on the basis of professional negligence but that is quite a high bar. A less stressful solution is to give him the opportunity to put his work right and then resubmit the application.

How incompetent was he?

One no experience here, but it seems odd and unlikely that a professional can do their job with the outcome in mind. I get that pp is a moveable feast, but op days it's failed on basics.
Could she/he review it for resubmission?

I would think that if you live in a conservation area, the architect should be aware of the restrictions that imposes on a design and work accordingly.

How basic are his mistakes? Can you give an example?

OT but did your neighbours have permission to cut down the trees? It's necessary in a conservation area. Could this help your case?

Is your architect a planning consultant?

If you knew you lived in an area that it's tricky to get plannning permission, did you discuss this first? Did you ask advice about the process for planning permission.

If you did all of these and they said they were certain they would do the best job to get you the best outcome then you got what you paid for. YABU
If you didn't then it's your fault. YABU

If the architect said it was a done deal and no way you wouldn't get PP. then you are YANBU

but in all of my years I have never known someone to make claims they cannot back up

In a conservation area the reasons for refusal are likely to be quite basic - that it doesn't enhance the character and the appearance of the area.

Did you or he have meetings with the planning department to discuss the likelihood of success and any issues so the application could be amended to make it more acceptable?

It's not a foregone conclusion to get planning permission in a conservation area so it might not be mistakes he's made as such.

Thank you everyone.
I think it was a long shot idea because as people have said the reasons (design etc) seemed quite basic.
Should be speaking to council tomorrow and see what she says.
We had wanted it to be in keeping with our stone house but now thinking a conservatory type thing may be possible?

Quite often if you have an historic house, they really don't want it to be in keeping
They want it to be clearly different.
Advice they should have given you
But as with all these, the best thing to ever do is open a dialogue with the planning dept first to gauge what they want.
Each council is different, but if you have them on your side from the get go it can save a lot of money time and pain!!!

Yes i saw one of these grand designs like programmes and I was shocked they wouldn't get permission for an extension in keeping with the current stone house but got permission for this great big huge modern glass extension.

There are so many variables here... you should have spoken to the council before submitting plans, you should have checked that your architect understood the constraints, you should have checked to see if architect had felt with similar schemes with this planning authority, is you building listed, locally listed or a non-designated heritage asset (if it’s stone I would have thought that it would have fallen into one of these categories, did the architect supply a suitable design and access statement or historic environment statement? Did the architect not talk to the planning office during the course of the application (if they did they would have know what the outcome was going to be). Is it really an architect, A planner, Or a plan smith?

Sadly as a planner (who currently also loooks after the historic environment team, there are far too many ‘agents’ who will submit a duff application first to then get additional fees for a subsequent application or appeal.

Of course there is the appeal route, but in all honesty, unless you can prove serious professional misconduct you won’t get very far with suing (or making a Calum Tom rIBs or the RTPI).

Next time you need to be a bit more savvy too.

Not Callum toms but claim through RIBA...

Our previous council (for a fee) allowed you to have a pre planning meeting with plans before you submitted the formal request which seemed to work well. I didn't use it but a friend did and it went her away when she formally applied.

If you hired him to draw plans and he drew what you asked him to draw, he has fulfilled his end of the bargain. Unless you hired him as a planning consultant and your contract explicitly states that he will revise the plans as necessary?

It's worth contacting him and asking if he's willing to revise the plans for free/cheap so you can re-apply. But I'd say there's zero chance of a refund.