Separate the costs before comparing quotes
Your project budget should distinguish the professional appointment from the application fee, submission-platform charge, measured survey, technical investigations and construction costs. A low headline design price is not a like-for-like comparison if it excludes the planning statement, amendments or specialist input your property needs.
Plandome fees are quoted against the property and agreed work. This page does not publish invented fixed prices or suggest that an initial enquiry includes a measured survey. Ask for a written scope that states the deliverables, revision allowance, payment stages, VAT treatment and what happens if the planning route changes.
What changes the amount of professional work?
An extension to a house with reliable drawings presents a different task from a building with uncertain lawful use, multiple past permissions or heritage constraints. The number of options, quality of existing information, need for a site visit and extent of neighbouring context all affect the appointment.
For an HMO, distinguish a feasibility review, a planning submission and a housing-licence application. They do not use identical evidence or drawings. For a conversion, agree whether the commission includes testing layout efficiency, assessing the submission route and coordinating reports, or only drawing a preferred scheme.
Council and submission charges
Leeds directs applicants to the current Planning Portal fee calculator. Select the actual application type and development description; a householder extension, change of use, prior approval and lawful development certificate can attract different charges. Check the live calculator when submitting rather than budgeting from an old screenshot.
The Planning Portal may charge separately for its submission service. Leeds also publishes pre-application charges. These are separate from professional advice commissioned from Plandome. Confirm which payments you will make directly and which, if any, an agent will handle on your behalf.
Request a properly scoped quote
Send the property address, current use, proposed works, available plans and photographs, and any decision notices or enforcement correspondence. Explain whether you need an early view on feasibility, a complete planning submission or help with a decision already received.
Ask for optional items to be identified rather than silently assumed: structural engineering, ecology, trees, drainage, heritage assessment, visualisations and building-regulations design. If an approval is obtained, allow for conditions and technical design before construction. The next stage should have its own clear scope.
Your questions, answered
Can you guarantee permission for a fixed fee?
No. The fee pays for the agreed professional work. The planning authority decides the application; a quotation should never promise a particular decision.
Are council fees included?
Only if the written quotation expressly says so. Keep council, submission-platform and specialist consultant charges separately visible.
Sources & further reading
Primary guidance and evidence checked 21 October 2026. Recheck live sources before acting.
Make this specific to your property. General guidance cannot establish a site’s lawful use, boundaries or the outcome of an application. Bring your address, plans and any council correspondence to the next conversation.
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