Many people embark on a building project without knowing what to expect from their architect or designer, how much their fees will be and what the impact of their work will be on the end result of the building project. Some architects or designers offer services which aren’t strictly required or necessary, therefore incurring unnecessary fees for clients, and some may commit to planning applications in the knowledge that the application is unlikely to be approved. We offer a transparent and honest service and having carried out our (free) initial consultation, we will provide our clients with a detailed, concise and easy to follow proposal of what our involvement should be. We will provide a fixed fee for each stage and also notify the client of any additional fees, such as for planning applications or for structural engineers calculations. We do not offer services where we feel it to be unnecessary, (for example, a competent builder should be more than capable of project managing a small domestic kitchen extension without the need for our involvement) and if we are uncertain about the prospect of a particular planning application, we will make initial enquiries with the local authority about the likelihood of approval, prior to committing our clients to any significant cost.
Quite often we will provide sketches within our fee proposal, free of charge, (similar to the above) in order to enable our clients to visualise how their finished project may look. We constantly involve our clients in the design process throughout, from the initial schematic layouts, right down to finite positions of plug sockets, so they feel involved and in control of their project.
We have excellent working relationships with the planning authorities of Leeds, Bradford, Harrogate and Calderdale, but regularly work in areas futher afield. We find this helps in our excellent success rate in achieving planning permission at the first attempt.
We work closely with several reputable building contractors, whom we have excellent and long-standing working relationships with, and we routinely assist our clients in appointing a suitable and competent contractor to undertake their building project. Appointing a contractor tends to be the most daunting aspect of most building projects for our clients, and our approach usually ensures that any uncertainty in this respect is eradicated before works commence. Even if we aren’t formally appointed to project manage a particular building project, we will always make ourselves available to assist with queries on site.
So, if you have a future building project of your own in mind, why not contact us to see how we can help you?
