Offset construction cost overruns against architect fees?

Good day

We have recently moved into our newly built single-family house. The house turned out great, but the costs are much higher than calculated in the cost estimate. The cost overrun amounts to approximately CHF 270,000, which corresponds to 32.5%. Yesterday I received another invoice for just under 6,000, which of course is again not included in the estimate. Yesterday I lost my temper and I am wondering if I can offset this invoice with the outstanding fee from the architect. I think if he wants to take me to court, things do not look good for him due to the high cost overrun. It is of course important to mention that within this overrun only one item amounting to 5,000 was additionally desired by us... everything else are simply costs that the architect did not calculate or miscalculated.

What do you think about this? Thanks for any information.

Best regards Philippe

A construction cost volume of just under one million (800,000) is already substantial.

What generally bothers me: Barely any details, what cost how much more and what caused it? Extra requests/upgrades by the builder or volumes/measurements incorrect? Or costs per unit too low? Completely forgotten positions?

I mean, around 200K you usually don’t just miscalculate so easily.

And how much of the overrun was "intended" or approved by you?

By the way, I believe that a simple offset against the fee will not be possible, but I am not a lawyer.

Hello Philippe,

Your description of the events is confused and incomplete; probably due to yesterday's excitement. Please try again with more detail. Thank you.

.... verrechnen kann. Ich denke, wenn er vor Gericht mit mir gehen will, dann sieht es auf Grund der hohen Kostenüberschreitung nicht gut für ihn aus.

You should be very careful with this "assumption," because it can easily backfire!

Rhenish greetings