Most owners compare ADU proposals the way they compare roofing bids: by price and by who can start soonest. Design work does not behave that way. Two proposals with the same number at the bottom can describe very different amounts of work, and the gap usually surfaces months later, in plan check, when one set moves and the other stalls.
The right questions expose that gap before money changes hands. Below are the ones worth asking in a first meeting with an accessory dwelling unit designer, along with what a useful answer sounds like.
Where Does the Scope Start and Stop?
The most common misunderstanding in ADU work is what the word “plans” covers. Some proposals include schematic drawings only. Others include the full construction document package and permit support.
Ask directly whether the fee includes:
- Zoning and code analysis of the parcel before design begins
- Permit-ready construction documents suitable for submittal
- Coordination with a structural engineer
- Title 24 energy compliance documents
- Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing information
- Application submittal and responses to plan check corrections
Then ask how many rounds of correction responses are covered and what happens after those are used. A proposal that goes quiet at submittal leaves the owner holding the hardest part of the process alone.
What Has This Designer Built on a Lot Like Mine?
Experience is only useful when it matches the situation. Someone with dozens of flat-lot detached units behind them may have limited exposure to sloped parcels, and a portfolio of new construction says little about reuse.
This shows up most clearly in garage conversion design jobs. Converting a structure that already exists raises questions that never come up on a new build: whether the slab and footings support habitable use, whether ceiling height meets requirements, how the existing framing performs, how the lost garage space affects storage and utility placement, and whether prior unpermitted work is sitting inside the walls. Anyone quoting a conversion should be able to describe how they evaluate those conditions before drawing.
Which Building Department Will Review This?
Los Angeles County contains dozens of permitting authorities. An unincorporated parcel goes through the county. An incorporated city runs its own department, with its own submittal checklist, local amendments, and formatting habits.
A designer who has submitted in that jurisdiction can describe the checklist without looking it up. One who has not should say so plainly. Both answers are workable. The answer to avoid is a broad claim of regional coverage with no specifics attached.
How Will Problems Be Handled?
Every project meets something unexpected. The useful question is what happens after that.
Ask what the designer does when plan check raises an issue requiring a design change. Ask who writes the correction responses. Ask whether they have taken over stalled projects, since that work sharpens a person’s read of why sets fail. Ask what they would tell a client whose lot cannot support the unit that client wants, and listen for whether the answer includes saying no.
What Is Not Included?
Exclusions are as informative as inclusions. Survey work, soils reports, structural upgrades, utility upgrades, school fees, and permit fees paid to the city are common exclusions, and any of them can move a budget. Asking for the exclusion list in writing turns a vague number into a real one.
What Is the Realistic Timeline?
Design time and review time are separate, and only one sits within a designer’s control. A candid answer separates them: weeks for documents, additional weeks or months for review, with the range depending on the city and the completeness of the submittal. Anyone quoting a single fixed date for permit issuance is describing something they cannot control.
What the Answers Reveal
Taken together, these questions test one thing: whether the designer works from the code outward or the drawing outward. Sets that stall are usually attractive drawings built to a standard nobody verified. Sets that move rest on a resolved analysis of what the parcel actually allows.
Design 1 Studio is an established accessory dwelling unit designer working across Los Angeles County, with more than 1,500 projects completed, a code analysis ahead of every design, and garage conversion design carried through permit issuance.