A TAVISTOCK architect has been fined £1,000 by a professional conduct committee after failing to complete work for a Tavistock woman.

Michael Hooper, of Mike Hooper Architects in Tavistock, was referred to the professional conduct committee of the Architects Standards Board by client Sue Foster after drawings and specifications he had promised in December 2020 were still not completed to her satisfaction ten months later.

In the intervening months, she sent him scores of emails asking when the work would be forthcoming, but delays continued.

When the drawings and report were finally submitted in October 2021, four issues she had first flagged up in March had still not been addressed by Mr Hooper.

Ms Foster hired Mr Hooper in December 2020 to help her with a project at her cottage in Cornwall, where she wanted to knock down an existing porch and rebuild and extend this to create a garden room.

She asked Mr Hooper to draw up plans and a Building Regulations Schedule for the work. They agreed a fee in an email exchange in the middle of December.

The architect then visited the property for a site survey on January 28, 2021 and said that a survey would be required with additional fees of £500, which Ms Foster paid.

He told her at this point that he would be able to carry out the work on the drawings and schedule in two to three weeks.

In fact, delays, which Mr Hooper attributed to his assistant having to go into hospital, meant that he only emailed the preliminary drawings and Building Regulation specification notes on March 7.

Ms Foster responded the following day, flagging up four details which needed correcting.

She sent a further email to Mr Hooper on March 24, asking for clarification on whether the steel frame needed fire proofing and several other issues, before she went back to the structural engineer.

Mr Hooper responded on March 25, saying it was up to the structural engineer to address the fire proofing and the specification for underfloor heating was the contractors or plumbers’ responsibility as they would design it.

He accepted he had misread the client’s specification for the front window.

On April 6 2021, the client emailed Mr Hooper again in a formal letter setting out her concerns about his work.

She said Mr Hooper had failed to keep her informed of his timeframe for the work and had not kept her informed when that timeframe became unrealistic.

On April 27 Mr Foster emailed the updated Building Regulations specification.

However, the panel, noted: ‘With the exception of an additional section relating to the external wall construction, the remainder of the document was identical to the version sent on 7 March 2021. The four areas in need of amendment flagged in the Referrer’s email dated 8 March 2021 were uncorrected.’

The structural engineer’s drawings were emailed to Mr Hooper on August 10, after a delay on Ms Foster’s side this time.

However, further emails from Ms Foster over the next two months did not lead to the work being forthcoming.

On September 24, she emailed Mr Hooper asking him not to ignore her email.

He responded the next day to say he would respond ‘on Monday’ and added ‘Please do not threaten me with ‘do not ignore this email’ as I will pass it to my solicitor’.

Finally, on October 15, Mr Hooper sent the final drawings and Building Regulations specifications and said his invoice would follow over the weekend. The errors first flagged up on March 8 remained uncorrected.

In response to this, Ms Foster then reported Mr Hooper to the Architects Standards Board.

The standards committee found that Mr Hooper admitted that he did not complete the work for his client without undue delay, that he failed to keep her informed of the progress of the work and that he had not kept to the original timeframe of two to three weeks to produce the work promised.

He had also not responded to the client’s complaint ‘courteously and promptly’ as required by the architect’s code.

The panel noted that Mr Hooper ‘admits that his conduct amounts to Unacceptable Professional Conduct’ and that he ‘agrees to a disciplinary order of a financial penalty of £1,000’.