Somewhere between the sketch and the approved permit, every Kenyan building project meets four letters: BORAQS. Most people meet them as a checkbox — “the drawings need a stamp” — and a fee they did not budget. It is worth five minutes to understand what is actually being bought, because the stamp is not a rubber ritual. It is a named professional putting their registration on the line for your drawings.
What BORAQS is
The Board of Registration of Architects and Quantity Surveyors is the statutory body created under the Architects and Quantity Surveyors Act (Cap 525) to register the two professions and police who may practise as them. Registration is personal: it belongs to an architect, not to a firm, a website or a software tool. The Board keeps a register, and anyone can ask whether a name is on it — which is precisely what you should do before money moves, because the title is protected and the pretenders are real.
Why the county cares
County development-control offices process drawings submitted by registered professionals. An architectural set arriving without a registered architect behind it is not evaluated on its merits — it is returned. This is not bureaucratic theatre. The county is not equipped to re-derive whether your structure stands and your rooms breathe; the registration system exists so that a named, accountable professional has already answered for it. The stamp is how that accountability travels with the paper.
What a stamp promises — and what it does not
- It promises review. A registered architect has examined the drawings and is prepared to sign as the professional of record. Their name and registration go on the title block.
- It promises accountability. If the drawings are professionally deficient, there is a person the Board can hold to account — which is exactly the protection an anonymous PDF from the internet cannot offer.
- It does not promise approval. The county still checks zoning, setbacks, coverage and its own schedules. A stamped set that violates your zone gets refused, stamp and all.
- It does not replace the engineer. Structural drawings carry their own professional. For a storeyed house, budget for both.
The trap of the stampless bargain
The cheap set that skips the architect is not cheaper — it is deferred. It surfaces at submission as a returned application; or worse, on site, when works proceeding without approval meet an enforcement notice. Rework at that stage costs more than the professional fee ever did, and the schedule damage costs more than the money. If a price looks impossible, the thing it is not including is usually the accountable human.
How Chimbuko handles it
Every sheet we generate is marked schematic pre-design until a registered architect has reviewed it — we say so on the drawing, because a marking that quietly disappears is the kind of honesty that fails when it matters. The Stamped Set (KES 29,500, VAT inclusive) is where that changes: a BORAQS-registered architect reviews the set, signs as architect of record, and the stamped prints and DXF come to you submission-ready. The engine assists; a person answers. That order never reverses.