Design & Rehab Budget Advice

[Paul Ortiz]

Question and/or advice.

How would you handle a Rehab when the Design and Budget clearly are not in line with each other?

Situation:

Client has the home, hired a architect, have the permits but now the budgets are way over the architects estimates.

Outcome:

Not sure need opinions.

Generally we work with the owners ahead of time to review designs and plan out rough estimates, so that there is some type of realistic idea for cost.

since they (the Owners) were referred to us by a acquaintance I feel obligated to Help.

[Colin L.]

This is always an unfortunate situation and is usually a result of a lack of communication on someone's part. But moving forward I see a few options:

-client comes up with more money to design it as is.

-client bids the job to other contractors. maybe this contractor is just more expensive than others and they can find a less expensive one that they will be happy with.

-client, architect and contractor sit down together and cut costs by finding less expensive finishes, fixtures, appliances, and other measures to meet the budget.

-architect redesigns the job with a smaller scope of work that the client agrees to (in many architect/client contracts this would be at no cost to the owner but depends on each contract).