Back to first principles. Why do you think a project manager is the answer? Can you describe the set up you were envisaging - I am guessing you had an Architect prepare a design, and were intending to manage the building phase yourself, with a cooperative and helpful builder? If I'm right, my first recommendation would be to back to your architect to discuss the situation. I'm a quantity surveyor myself and have to say that it is a tall order to reduce a £420K scheme to £180K - circa 60% reduction. This would require a radical redesign and rethinking of the whole scope/scale of work.

You won't save the VAT by finding a non-VAT registered builder. The current threshold for VAT registration is £67,000 turnover p.a. and your scheme far exceeds this. You could save VAT by knocking down your existing building and starting again as this would qualify as a new building - not very green but, hey, VAT rules are not designed to be green. Alternatively, if your nursery business is VAT registered, you should be able to claim your VAT back.

A couple of words of cation: how have you achieved the reduction from £420K to £255K - in consultation with the builder or unilaterally? It is rarely the case that you can straight cut things out without some compensatory factors elsewhere - e.g. the builder may expect to recover a certain value of overheads from the job and demand a higher percentage from a lower value of work. Secondly, all builders price differently, so if you are valuing your reductions based on the tender from one builder, do not expect that this is the value of saving you would make if you employed another builder - the next builder will have to price everything on his own terms.

To answer your question (at last) it depends what you mean by 'project manager'. He may be a principal consultant who manages your design team (architect, surveyor, specialist engineers as appropriate) and builder on your behalf. Or he may be a hands-on site manager who directly organises sub-contractors, direct labour and materials procurement - i.e. acting as a builder, rather than a consultant. Usually, on a project of that the size you describe, you'll be referring to the builder type project manager, not the consultant. In such case, I would expect you could find such a fellow for around £1000-1250 per week and he'll be there full time on site. The consultant type may charge between 2and 4% of the project value, depending upon his brief and the value of the project (lower value project, higher percentage).

If you would like to talk this through, I'm happy to oblige if you could provide a contact e-mail?

What is the floor plan area of this building?

Hi Katymac, some Project managers work in the way you suggest, by taking the job on a percentage fee basis and outsourcing the work in bundles to sub-contractors. These are paid directly by the Client and therfore remain self employed, and are responsible for their own tax affairs [meaning they are less likely to be VAT registered]. In my experience, this can only work effectively if the PM is full time on your site, ensuring that the subbies work in harmony and produce the desired result. Not easy and dependent on established working relationships.

A further way around the VAT is to open an account in a Builders Merchant yourself, employing the PM to oversee day to day materialsrequirements. This will reduce the contract sum to PM and or subbies again reducing VAT

Hope this helps

Mike

Cutting my losses

If I don't do it here I won't be able to - it is something that has been addressed (rather a lot)

So finding a builder/project manager is the way to go

Goodness me - another chalenge

Hello Katymac,

We have just launched an online project planning and collaboration tool aimed at smaller building projects. I'll be happy to give you a free project for say six months in return for some feedback provided you are prepared to use the system and are reasonably computer literate (I guess you are why she would be using the forum).
you can find out more here.
http://completepicture.co.uk/index.php/Project-Extranet/construction-project-extranet.html

if you decide to go ahead use the registration form and mention this post in the details when you register.

regards
Paul

Posted By: KatymacThe tenders came in at £420K......I have £180 to spend

£180k I presume...

I can't see how anyone could knock that much of a redevelopment without redesigning it, so I'd expect the architect should be the first port of call with a brief to deliver a redevelopment that can be done for less than £170k including his fee (then you've got 10k as a (still rather low) contingency budget)

If the architect knew your budget, then I'd think he actually ought to do the redesign for free being as they've obviously not delivered a realistic plan, unless you'd also been insistent on having loads of costly features, or you're actually asking the impossible

I'd think that a really experienced and good project manager could save you money by taking the architects plans and using their experience to work them up in the most cost effective way, using experience from other sites to suggest alternative cheaper methods to the ones originally planned, plus managing the schedule of work and deliveries on site so that each job proceeded in order, with no trades waiting on other trades / kit to actually get on with their work / having to undo other people's stuff to get at their stuff, plus using their contacts to get you a good team of workers.

whether they'd actually save enough money to cover their costs is another question, and one that really depends on how good you'd be at project managing yourself / how good the builder / trades were at self organising their work, not ripping you off etc.

oh bum... if not, then I reckon they defo could have done with a decent project manager;)

I wonder what happened?

I hate it when that happens - new thread, lots of posts, interesting story, relevant to me, might be able to add value, mind-a-churning but didn't spot newbie reawakening old thread..... deflated. Don-M best to mention that you are posting on an old thread. Ta