Hi, My parents planned to purchase a property last year subject to planning permission for rennovation. I spent hours designing the perfect home for them. We instructed an architect and we agreed a price of around £800 he put plans together based on my design. The plans were rejected by planning based on the comments of 2 neighbours - so we had to amend the design and resubmit. We got the permission, but not without a lot ot stress, time and expense - the architects bill was £2000 in the end! Then the sale on my parents house fell through and they were unable to purchase the property. The architect assured us that the plans and our planning permission could not be used and the person that was now buying the property liked my design and wanted to approach us to purchase the plans. But once he found out the cost (which was considerably higher because of all the architects visits to the planners and a redraw), we didn't hear anything. The buyers have gone ahead with the build, put in a very small amendment and have been granted permission based on our application. No changes have been been made to the plans, but they did not have permission from us to use them. The architect's name is on the planning application, I can only assume that he has double crossed us as he promised that he would not allow them to use the plans unless they paid half of the fees. He may be on holiday - but he hasnt replied toe me yet. This is unethical at best, but I have no idea if we have any legal rights as even though the architect owns the copyright - it was all based on my thorough design. Does anyone know where I stand legally - can I do anything or is it legal to just use someone's planning permission? It is very annoying to have been landed with all the bills, whilst either the buyer gets off scot-free, or the architect gets more money for the job we paid him to do for us. Thanks