Hiring architects - what should you pay attention to?

Hello dear forum,

we believe that we have now found a suitable architect for us.
The first consultation was very pleasant - the houses built correspond to our style and personally everything fits as well. (At least so far - we hope it stays that way )
Now we have received offers covering the various service phases. We have agreed that we can commission step by step.
Now to my question: what should be paid attention to in the contract?

Attached are the framework conditions we received in the offer:

Service phase 1-4 up to and including approval planning.

- includes 3 different preliminary designs with cost estimation, as well as final design planning, approval planning with building application.

- incl. elaboration of visualization / photorealistic representation of the building from the outside as well as calculation of the site level

- thermal protection calculation if required - separate offer (and thus additional costs)

Since this is our only offer with this level of detail, we would like to know if this all fits or if there is anything else we should pay attention to.

Thank you very much for the feedback!

- includes 3 different preliminary designs with cost estimates, as well as final design planning, approval planning with building application.

3 preliminary designs is very good.

- incl. development of visualization / photorealistic representation of the building from outside as well as calculation of the plot level

A goodie that not everyone (including) does.

- thermal protection calculation if needed - separate offer (and thus additional costs)

Normal.

What does he want? HOAI or fixed price?

We have been given a fixed price - however, it is based on the HOAI.

we are of the opinion that we have now found a suitable architect for us.

In order not to "use up" one of the three preliminary drafts, I would explicitly mention the design from along with the criticisms of it as a negative example of the planning objective.