Permitted development - architect?

[lolawoo]

We're planning a single storey rear extension that will fall under permitted development. Would we be wise to still get an architect (or architectural designer) involved to create plans for building regs / tender purposes? Or just go straight to a builder?

Hi you should get plans drawn both for tender and building control but also for any disputes with your builder. You don’t need a fancy architect- if you know what you want you’ll need either a small practice architect or an architectural technician to draw them. If you need any structural alterations you may need an engineer. It’s impossible to get comparable quotes without plans and the you will dispute with the builder in 6 months just how many plugs and what size windows you agreed etc
Depending on the size of your extensions it can be anything from £200- £3000k, but you will get your money back.

Thank you mother, that's exactly what I was thinking. We will need structural calcs, and although we do know what we want we don't fully understand the implications re: drains etc. And yes I want to make sure builders are quoting like-for-like with as much detail as possible - just wanted to check we weren't being 'overkill'.