Questions to Ask Your Architect
Questions for a first or second meeting with an architect about a house, an extension or a renovation: how the fee is structured and what sits outside it, who does the drawing, how the construction budget gets tested, permits, contractor selection, site visits during the build, and who owns the drawings if things end early.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Have you done a project like this one, at roughly this budget, in this area?
Why ask it
The budget band matters as much as the building type. An office used to twice your budget will detail your project the same way it details those, and local experience also means existing relationships at the building department.
Who would actually be working on my project day to day, and how many other jobs are they carrying?
Why ask it
The person who wins the work is often not the person drawing it. Ask who attends site visits and who answers the phone in month seven, because that is the relationship you are buying.
Can I see a project you finished three or four years ago, and speak to those owners?
Why ask it
Recent photographs are taken before anyone has lived in the building. At four years the details have been tested, and the owners will tell you what they would change and how the architect behaved when something went wrong.
Can you tell me about a project that went over budget or ran late, and what happened?
Why ask it
Every practice has one, and an architect who says otherwise is either very new or not being straight. What matters is whether the client was warned early and who absorbed the cost of fixing it.
What do you need from me before design can start: a survey, soil tests, drawings of what's already there?
Why ask it
Surveys, soil investigations, asbestos checks and measured drawings of an existing building are usually the owner's cost and the first source of delay. Getting the list early lets you order them while contracts are still being signed.
How do you charge: a percentage of construction cost, hourly, or a fixed fee by phase?
Why ask it
A percentage fee rises with construction cost, which puts you on opposite sides of any conversation about trimming scope. Hourly needs a cap, fixed fee needs an exact scope. Whichever it is, ask what happens if the project grows.
What isn't in your fee, and which consultants would I be hiring separately?
Why ask it
Structural, mechanical and civil engineers, landscape design, renderings, surveys and permit fees commonly sit outside the architect's number. Without the excluded list in writing, two proposals cannot be compared at all.
What triggers each payment, and what would I owe if we stopped after a phase?
Why ask it
Payments tied to completed phases rather than to the calendar keep incentives aligned. Plenty of projects pause for a year after early design, so it is worth knowing what you would have paid for and what drawings you would hold.
How is the construction budget set at this early stage, and who prices the drawings?
Why ask it
Early numbers come from the architect's own experience, a cost consultant, or a contractor doing a favour. Ask which, because a figure produced by nobody in particular is the usual reason a scheme has to be redesigned later.
What happens if the bids come back over budget?
Why ask it
This decides who pays for the redesign. Some offices revise within the original fee when their own estimate was optimistic; others bill every change as additional service. Agree it before bids arrive, not after.
How many rounds of revisions are included before changes become extra?
Why ask it
Changes are the most common route to a fee dispute. A clear answer names how many options you get at each stage and defines the difference between refining a scheme and starting a new direction.
Who prepares the permit submissions, and how long does approval usually take around here?
Why ask it
Approval timelines are local knowledge, and someone who has submitted recently in your jurisdiction will give a range rather than a shrug. Getting this wrong moves your construction start by a season.
Have you dealt with our building department before, and what tends to snag with them?
Why ask it
Plan reviewers have standing objections, preferred detail formats and predictable requests. An architect who can forecast the comments you will get is often worth more than the fee difference between two offices.
Do you help us find and compare contractors, or is that on us?
Why ask it
Contractor selection is where the money is won or lost. Ask whether they prepare a bid package, compare bids line by line and check references, or whether they hand over drawings and step back.
During construction, how often would you be on site, and what are you checking when you're there?
Why ask it
This is the service owners most often cut and most often miss. Ask whether visits are included, extra, or hourly, and who writes up what was seen, because an unrecorded visit settles no argument later.
If something unexpected turns up behind a wall, how does that get decided and priced?
Why ask it
In renovation work this is a certainty rather than a risk. You want to know who can authorise a change, what the paper trail looks like, and whether the architect reviews the contractor's price before you approve it.
Who owns the drawings, and could I take them to another architect if we parted ways?
Why ask it
Architects generally retain copyright and license the drawings for one build on one site. That governs whether you could reuse the design, and it governs your position if the relationship ends mid-project, so read the clause before signing.
Are you licensed in this jurisdiction, and what insurance do you carry?
Why ask it
Registration is checkable through the licensing board rather than taken on trust. Professional liability cover is what stands behind a design error, so ask whether the policy is current and how the limit compares with your construction cost.
What part of what I've described would you push back on?
Why ask it
This separates a professional from an order-taker. An honest answer names the part of your brief that fights the site, the budget or the code, and hearing it in a first meeting costs you nothing.
What happens after we move in, if something doesn't work the way it was drawn?
Why ask it
Snag lists, warranty claims and systems that underperform all surface in the first year. Ask what involvement continues after handover, whether it is included in the fee, and who chases the contractor.
Hiring an Architect and Keeping the Project Honest
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the first meeting
Bring a number and a range, not a wish
Say what you can spend and what you could stretch to, including a contingency you have set aside. Architects design to the number they are given, and a vague budget produces a scheme that has to be cut later at your expense.
Separate needs from preferences in writing
One page: what the building has to do, what you would like, and what you are willing to lose. This is the document that settles arguments in month four, and writing it often reveals that two people in the household want different projects.
Collect what exists
Old drawings, survey plats, permit history, photographs of the house before earlier work. Every document you can produce is time nobody has to bill you for, and previous unpermitted work is better discovered now than during plan review.
Comparing proposals
Line up the exclusions, not the totals
Write the two fee proposals side by side and mark every item one includes and the other does not: engineering, renderings, permit runs, site visits, as-built drawings. The cheaper number is often the shorter scope.
Ask each office the same three questions
What happens if bids come in high, how many revisions are included, and how often will you visit site. The differences in those answers predict the experience better than any portfolio.
Call references with specific questions
Ask what changed between the first estimate and the final cost, how the architect handled the worst week, and whether they would use the same office again for a different project. Open-ended praise tells you very little.
Where projects go wrong
Choosing on portfolio photographs alone
Photographs record the best moment of a finished building and nothing about the process, the budget overrun or the contractor's opinion. Two references and one four-year-old project tell you more.
Skipping the construction administration phase
Dropping site visits saves a visible amount and hands the interpretation of the drawings to the contractor. Owners who cut it usually discover the cost in substituted materials and details built the easy way.
Deciding late
Tile, fixtures and appliance selections made after framing starts are the standard cause of change orders. Ask for a decision schedule with dates and treat those dates as real.
Communicating through two channels
Instructions given directly to a contractor on site, outside the architect's knowledge, break both the drawings and the accounting. Agree one route for every instruction and keep it in writing.
Before you sign the agreement
What to confirm in writing
- 1Scope by phase, with the deliverable at the end of each one.
- 2Fee basis, payment triggers, and hourly rates for anything additional.
- 3The list of consultants and reports you are paying for separately.
- 4Number of revisions included, and what counts as a new direction.
- 5Site visit frequency during construction and who reports on them.
- 6Ownership and licence terms for the drawings, including termination.
- 7Insurance certificate and current registration number.