Hello Dorine,

In Geneva Atelier Féroé is a good architect specialiszed in renovation... nice person, efficient, a lot of experience with old buildings

http://www.swissguide.ch/fr/Architecte-Bureau-d-architecture/Geneve/1077849_atelierfrochristianfoehr.html

Younger and more trendy BCRAR www.bcrar.ch... 3 nices architects (you can contact Vincent Roesti 022 797 19 52).

Christophe

I am considering buying a place and renovating it. How was your renovating experience in Geneva? Any advice/warnings?

Hi Mark,

I've just bought and am renovating an apartment, my second time in Geneva. Your alternatives are to contract the whole thing out to an architect, or to organize everything yourself. The advantage of giving it all to an individual is that he will subcontract everything for you, so you only deal with him if there are any issues later.

If you choose to take charge of the project yourself, do your homework on the people you engage to help you. If you need to make any changes to plumbing or electrics, you'll need to get licensed people to make the alterations as your changes may affect other people in the building. It's best to keep it legal and ask them to show all their documents. From a taxation perspective you can offset some of the renovation costs against the capital gains, so make sure you keep the receipts and invoices for everything so you can show it in your tax declaration or when you sell the property. If you choose to pay people in cash, it might only save you money in the short term.

The architect or building contractors often get kick-backs from their suppliers. What happened to me was that I was given a list of addresses where I could choose my bathrooms, tiles, cabinets, kitchen and appliances at extortionate rates. In the end, I went for an Ikea kitchen which I assembled myself, ensuring the plumber and electrician had placed the connections in the right place beforehand. This way the liability is theirs if there are any problems later on. The architect who had done the rest of the apartment behaved very indignated and insisted that I had a lower quality kitchen than what he could provide, but I'm very happy with it.

In terms of timing, although my experiences have been pretty punctual, things quickly get out of hand. So when you're making your time estimate, the rule of thumb is "double it and add a bit more"! :-)

Hi Mark, Wonder if you could share your experience on small renovations. We are planning to renovate the kitchen entirely which also involves changing the location of the sink. We would also change the tiles in the kitchen and break a small wall which is not load bearing. We have been told that we require a permit from the Office des autorisations de construire. We can fill up the 10 page form and have our design but not sure if these documents are sufficient to apply for the permit. I think they require some very precise drawings, plans etc. Since we are buying the kitchen from Ikea and will assemble and put the tiles ourselves, we don't need to hire a contractor. My father-in-law is an experinced builder from Finland. So my question is, can someone recommend an architect who would be able to help us with getting the permit with the right doucments? Any idea how this service will cost without them actually doing the renovation? Thanks in advance and any advice would be helpful.