ᐅ Regulation regarding the architect's flat-rate additional costs

Created on: 7 Jul 2018 11:50
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Alfista
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Alfista
7 Jul 2018 11:50
Hello everyone,

we are currently in the final stages of building our single-family house. We worked with an architect, who was commissioned for service phases 1-8 according to “HOAI 2013 §35, paragraph 1 Buildings.”

I have a question regarding the architect’s additional costs.

At the time, we received a quote from the architect listing all fees by service phase. There was no mention of additional costs in the quote. Now, the fee statements include a flat rate of 5% for additional costs. According to the architect, these are always applied and do not need to be specified in the quote. I find this statement hard to believe. After searching online, I was unable to find a clear answer.

Can you tell me whether additional costs (and their amount) must be stated in the architect’s quote, or if the architect can always apply a 5% flat rate?

Thank you in advance and have a nice weekend.

Regards,
Alfista
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HilfeHilfe
7 Jul 2018 12:24
I’m so glad I built without an architect.
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Zaba12
7 Jul 2018 12:51
HilfeHilfe schrieb:
I'm so glad we built without an architect

Our architect is quite nice, competent, and fair! @HilfeHilfe, that was probably your spellchecker :-p

The first architect mentioned and included a flat rate of 5% for incidental costs in the quote.

Did the architect not agree to a flat rate, or is that why you are paying according to the fee regulation? If you are doing this voluntarily, then you should also receive the usual 5%, as they are allowed to charge you that.
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Alfista
10 Jul 2018 07:51
It is already a lump-sum offer or will be billed as such -> fixed amounts according to the offer, regardless of the actual construction costs. However, now an additional 5% overhead is suddenly being added.

The offer itself was originally made based on the HOAI and the expected construction costs.
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Zaba12
10 Jul 2018 10:49
Have you given the architect a written order based on the offer, meaning you signed the offer without additional construction costs (NBK)?

From my point of view, that would then be binding, and it would be the architect’s own fault if they had forgotten the NBK beforehand! But as I said, NBK are common. Our first architect wanted to charge according to HOAI plus 5% NBK. This was stated in the offer for design phases 1-4, approximately 12,000€.

The architect we eventually chose wanted a flat fee of 4,500€ for design phases 1-4 and also did a very, very good job.