Having plans drawn up sounds like a single transaction and is really a sequence: survey, draft, review, submission, and then a second technical set before anyone builds anything. This page describes that sequence honestly — what happens in each step, how long each takes, what it costs and what you have to decide at each point.
MCIAT chartered drawings for planning, building regs, lofts and extensions — fixed fees 30% below typical London architects. Tell us what you need and we’ll reply the same working day.
Anyone may draw and submit plans for a domestic project in England — there is no statutory monopoly on the work. What is regulated is the title: only someone on the Architects Registration Board register may call themselves an architect, under the Architects Act 1997. That protection covers the word, not the activity, which is why the market contains everyone from chartered practices to unqualified draughtspeople.
The practical question is who carries the technical liability and the professional indemnity. A chartered architectural technologist holds MCIAT under CIAT's Royal Charter of 2005, and the discipline is specifically technical design: the performance of the building fabric, the regulations, and the details that get built. For an extension, loft or conversion, that is precisely the work.
Where a registered architect genuinely earns a higher fee is a listed building, a whole-house remodel or a scheme where the aesthetic outcome is the point of the project. We will say so when that is the case rather than take work we are not the best value for.
First the survey. A technologist visits, measures the property and records levels, wall build-ups, openings, drainage and the boundary position. This is the step people try to skip and the step that determines whether everything after it is correct.
Then the draft. You see existing and proposed plans, elevations and sections and mark them up. Most schemes go through two rounds; the second is usually about door positions and rooflights rather than massing. Then submission: the drawings, the forms, the £258 householder fee, and the eight-week statutory determination period.
Then, separately, the technical set. Building regulations drawings are produced whether or not planning permission was needed, because the two systems are independent. A Full Plans application has those drawings checked before work starts, with a five-week decision period extendable to eight by agreement.
Existing and proposed floor plans at 1:50, existing and proposed elevations at 1:100, at least one section, a site location plan at 1:1250 and a block plan at 1:500. Those scales are what English councils require for a householder application, and drawings at the wrong scale are a common cause of invalidation.
Every sheet carries a scale bar, a north point, a drawing number and a revision. That sounds like housekeeping; it is the difference between a validation officer processing your application on day one and returning it on day five with a request for corrections while the eight-week clock has not started.
You receive PDFs for submission and printing, and we submit through the Planning Portal on your behalf unless you would rather do it yourself. The files are yours: if you later change technologist or builder, nothing is locked to us.
£840 for the planning drawing package, £1,750 for planning plus building regulations plus structural calculations, £1,225 for a loft, £1,575 for a mansard, £995 for a garage conversion, £1,950 for a basement. A standalone measured survey is £540; structural calculations on their own are £350. The fee is fixed at instruction and does not move with your build cost.
Add the council's own fees, which are statutory and identical everywhere in England: £258 for a householder application, £578 for a full application for a new dwellinghouse, £129 for a Lawful Development Certificate, £120 for larger home extension prior approval. Building control fees vary by authority.
| Package | Fixed fee | Typical turnaround |
|---|---|---|
| Planning drawings | £840 | 14–20 working days |
| Building regulations set | £1,750 combined | 18–24 working days |
| Loft conversion package | £1,225 | 14–20 working days |
| Measured survey only | £540 | 5–8 working days |
For the survey, yes — someone has to stand in the building. For everything after it, what matters is knowing the authority. Each of the 33 London boroughs applies national policy through its own Local Plan, and the differences are material: Article 4 directions removing permitted development rights across whole conservation areas, basement policies that cap excavation depth and garden coverage, and design guidance on dormers that varies street by street.
We work across all 33 boroughs and hold the local detail that decides applications — which is a different thing from having an office nearby. A drawing that ignores a borough's basement SPD is not saved by the practice being two streets away.
The practical test is whether whoever draws your plans can tell you, before any work starts, which policies your scheme runs into. On a Victorian terrace that usually means three questions: is the street covered by an Article 4 direction removing permitted development rights, does the borough's design guidance set a dormer set-back from the eaves, and has the property already used part of its permitted development allowance through an earlier extension. All three change what should be drawn, and all three are answerable from the council's own published documents in an afternoon.
That pre-check is why our first-time approval rate is 98%. It is not that the drawings are unusually persuasive; it is that schemes conflicting with a specific local policy get identified and redesigned before submission rather than after a refusal notice and a lost eight weeks.
£840 for a planning drawing package and £1,750 for planning plus building regulations plus structural calculations, fixed at instruction. Council fees are separate and statutory: £258 for a householder application, £129 for a Lawful Development Certificate. Percentage-of-build-cost fees, still common in London, typically land between £4,500 and £8,000 for the same drawing set on a mid-sized extension.
14 to 20 working days from survey to submission-ready planning drawings, and 18 to 24 for a building regulations pack. After submission the statutory clocks are the council's: eight weeks to determine a householder application, five weeks for a Full Plans building control decision, extendable to eight by agreement.
Almost certainly yes. Planning permission and building regulations are independent systems. A permitted development extension still needs a building regulations set covering structure, fire, thermal performance, ventilation and drainage, and it is worth £129 for a Lawful Development Certificate to evidence the permitted development claim when you sell.
We do not work that way. Every later drawing is built on the survey, so an error at that stage propagates into the planning application, the regulations pack and ultimately the steel order. On London terraces, wall thicknesses and floor levels vary within a single property often enough that self-measurement is a false economy.
We review the officer's reasons, and where the objection is addressable we redraw and resubmit — a resubmission within twelve months of the same applicant on the same site is free of the statutory fee. Our first-time approval rate is 98%, and the refusals we do see are usually policy conflicts identified and flagged before submission rather than surprises.
Yes, through the Planning Portal, including the forms, ownership certificates and fee, unless you would prefer to submit yourself. You get the drawing files either way — nothing is locked to us if you change adviser or builder later.
Tell us the address and what you want to build. Fixed fee and survey date back the same working day.
Get a fixed-fee quoteBefore you commit, it is worth understanding fixed fees, 30% below London architects and seeing why work with us. You can find your service to find the right fit, or set up your account to track your project. When you are ready, get a quote for your project — most homeowners have a fee in minutes — or contact us and a chartered technologist will be in touch.