ᐅ Drawing the plan yourself? Is it absolutely necessary to hire an architect?

Hello,
you can sketch out the rough plan, and then I would take it to the architect to put it into practice. They can also tell you if it fits within your budget or not.

Best regards, Angie

Hello, you can basically only make sketches yourself. A construction drawing that is submitted to the building authority / planning permission office can only be prepared by a certified architect or structural engineer, or in their office. They have to stamp it and take responsibility if something doesn’t work out in the end.

I hardly believe you will find a certified architect or structural engineer in Germany who will "stamp" your drawing. Especially since this involves a direct fee for the architect.

Regards, Thommi

I also created the preliminary design completely by myself in CAD, including the correct wall thicknesses, windows, etc. It remained quite basic, though. However, you can’t avoid involving an architect.

The difficult part is the details, such as wall connections, the required construction heights for roller shutter boxes, conduits, embedded elements, and so on.

You really have to dive deep into these details. Just imagine if you overlook a small construction detail — later on, it might not fit properly.

That would be a disaster.

Drafter

Hello Garn,
please think carefully about hiring a drafter. We hired one who was from Bavaria, but we are building in Baden-Württemberg and are what you would call "cross-border commuters." The regulations in Baden-Württemberg are considerably stricter – our drafter was simply overwhelmed by this. Essentially, we had to do his work ourselves and consult various authorities to provide him with the necessary information. He had no idea where to turn.

Conclusion ...
He had to hire a subcontractor to sign off on the submission plans and prepare the structural engineering, KfW 40 certificate, etc., for us – he is not authorized to submit documents himself. We never contracted the structural engineer – the drafter handled that.

Don’t make the same big mistake we did! You might find someone better than we did, and I don’t want to generalize – our drafter was also a distant relative of my partner, so we wanted to trust him.

Then came the arrogance … we paid the drafter €2300.00 and were glad to be finally finished. Then we received a hefty invoice from the structural engineer for almost €1500.00, which we didn’t know about – we assumed there would only be one bill from the drafter. Of course, we didn’t sign a contract (you feel like you don’t need one and don’t want to offend anyone), and now we have to pay everything, even though we didn’t commission the structural engineer.
An architect, including everything plus a site manager until the installation of the windows, would have cost us €2750.00.
In this regard, we lost out because verbal agreements nowadays just don’t work, and no contract was signed.

- Make sure to research everything thoroughly beforehand – especially clarify the liability insurance of the architect or drafter.
- Find out the soil conditions of your plot of land.
- Sign a contract with the architect.
- Agree on a fixed price.
- Set deadlines.

Save yourself the trouble … your energy is better spent elsewhere.

I wish you the best of luck!
Maren

Hello Maren,

Actually, things seemed to be going quite well for you. The costs for the house are not high. Neither the draftsman nor the structural engineer.

An architect certainly would not have done the whole service including construction supervision for 2,750 euros. You just have to look at the HOAI (Fee Structure for Architects and Engineers). The fees are agreed net based on the net construction costs. There are four fee zones, each with a minimum and maximum rate. For each price range, there is a corresponding fee. Even if a house falls only into fee zone 2 at the middle rate, for net construction costs of 300,000 euros (about $320,000), including everything and the architect’s involvement in selecting contractors, the fee would be around 33,000 euros (about $35,000). The structural engineer’s fee would come on top of that.

Even without construction supervision, you would still be looking at around 17,000 euros (about $18,000) net. Plus VAT on top of that. And the structural engineer’s fee would be additional as well.

Moreover, most architects never handle single-family houses for less than fee zone 3, which is even more expensive.

Which architect would have done that for 2,750 euros? I would like to meet them. My quotes sometimes go up to 60,000 euros (about $64,000) or more.

Best regards

Tobias

But you did notice that the last reply is from 2009, right?!