ᐅ Planning Phase: Building Permit / Planning Permission and Financing – Procedure
Created on: 20 Nov 2021 13:42
L
liwandreas
Hi friends,
I have already spent several hours here on the forum since we are now the "proud owners" of a plot with an old house and are starting this project. We are still at the very beginning and have never done anything like this before – so I would like to learn from your experiences and first understand my options, especially regarding support during construction.
Situation
- Large plot, hillside location, Stuttgart area
- House from 1960, in poor condition (when buying, we expected a demolition, but the floor plan is okay and could be worked with).
- Three architects visited the site. All said, “a complete renovation is possible, but the recommendation is demolition if you are willing to invest more money.”
- We had discussions with prefabricated house suppliers – their cost estimates were higher or similar to the architects’ rough initial estimates. Plus, construction time is longer due to delivery times compared to new builds.
- We now have appointments with two architects to understand their ideas and concepts for the plot…
- Very rough initial cost estimates for construction are around 600,000 euros (approx. 660,000 USD) for about 200m2 (2,150 sq ft) living space… just a first indication.
Planning (Getting building permit / planning permission and financing)
We understand that we now need a house plan to submit for the building permit / planning permission, finalize financing, etc. The next step is to decide on an architect or general contractor.
Construction phase:
What basic options are there here, or what would you recommend, for example:
1) No support: I take the architect’s plans and start to tender and assign individual trades, coordinating everything myself
2) Minimal support: I assign trades; if I get stuck, I ask the architect. But I hire an independent expert (e.g. a building inspector from Dekra) to oversee the construction and approve the work (I have read a lot here about costs ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 euros (approx. 3,300 to 11,000 USD))
3) Maximum support: I pay the architect about 10% of the project cost and “they take care of everything”
Are these roughly the options I have? I haven’t quite understood the added value of paying an architect so much for supervision when an expert could also do that.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thank you
I have already spent several hours here on the forum since we are now the "proud owners" of a plot with an old house and are starting this project. We are still at the very beginning and have never done anything like this before – so I would like to learn from your experiences and first understand my options, especially regarding support during construction.
Situation
- Large plot, hillside location, Stuttgart area
- House from 1960, in poor condition (when buying, we expected a demolition, but the floor plan is okay and could be worked with).
- Three architects visited the site. All said, “a complete renovation is possible, but the recommendation is demolition if you are willing to invest more money.”
- We had discussions with prefabricated house suppliers – their cost estimates were higher or similar to the architects’ rough initial estimates. Plus, construction time is longer due to delivery times compared to new builds.
- We now have appointments with two architects to understand their ideas and concepts for the plot…
- Very rough initial cost estimates for construction are around 600,000 euros (approx. 660,000 USD) for about 200m2 (2,150 sq ft) living space… just a first indication.
Planning (Getting building permit / planning permission and financing)
We understand that we now need a house plan to submit for the building permit / planning permission, finalize financing, etc. The next step is to decide on an architect or general contractor.
Construction phase:
What basic options are there here, or what would you recommend, for example:
1) No support: I take the architect’s plans and start to tender and assign individual trades, coordinating everything myself
2) Minimal support: I assign trades; if I get stuck, I ask the architect. But I hire an independent expert (e.g. a building inspector from Dekra) to oversee the construction and approve the work (I have read a lot here about costs ranging from 3,000 to 10,000 euros (approx. 3,300 to 11,000 USD))
3) Maximum support: I pay the architect about 10% of the project cost and “they take care of everything”
Are these roughly the options I have? I haven’t quite understood the added value of paying an architect so much for supervision when an expert could also do that.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thank you
G
Gerddieter25 Dec 2021 00:59liwandreas schrieb:
1) Termination:
Instead of commissioning only the initial phases (Module A), the architect sent us a contract with the right to terminate after each phase. I don’t see a problem here. What do you think?
This really depends on the ambitions of both contracting parties. What sounds fair can quickly become an issue...
You might think you are still in the preliminary investigation phase and want to exit the contract – but the architect may believe they have already created a design ready for planning permission / building permit and therefore demand appropriate payment… that’s when your point of dispute begins…
Gerddieter schrieb:
That very much depends on the ambitions of both contracting parties. What sounds fair can quickly become a problem... The so-called "standard architect model" is not exactly "born to take away Gerddieter’s faith in the goodness of people," but rather an honest intellectual who has peacefully and without any malicious intent studied architectural design. Your personal trauma with architects – I’m sure I have already pointed out that communication is a sender-receiver process, not a perpetrator-victim one, and that identifying a communication breakdown based on the outcome does not mean someone must have acted intentionally or with bad motives – should not be used to make all clients fundamentally afraid of architects as greedy, deceitful tricksters just waiting to stick out their tongue at a fly ;-).
Gerddieter schrieb:
You think you’re still at the initial assessment stage and want to get out of the contract – meanwhile, the architect believes they’ve basically already created a planning submission–ready design and demands the corresponding fee… and there you have your dispute… Respecting your personal trauma as I said, but objectively that simply is nonsense. "Initial assessment" in the sense of HOAI (German fee structure for architects) means reviewing the zoning plan, geotechnical report, and so forth. Playing around with preliminary drafts is already part of the outline planning phase and happens in dialogue with the clients, so they cannot be left unaware of progress. I was not involved when you defined the architect’s contract, so unfortunately I cannot say exactly where you laid the foundation for your unfortunate situation. But I see no reason to generally suspect ill will on the part of architects, although some of them do give cause to question their competence (on which topic I have already explained elsewhere how, for example, a poor estimate of costs can arise).
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
G
Gerddieter25 Dec 2021 21:2911ant schrieb:
Your personal architect trauma – ...
Your personal trauma, as you say, is respected, but factually that’s simply nonsense. You can call it "trauma" as often as you like, I call it "experience."
- and it’s clear and at least makes me very, very skeptical toward some architects... though there are some good ones too.
And of course I’m exaggerating when I say the conflict between design phase 1 and design phase 3 is inevitable. But I always enjoy reading your posts!
GD
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