Owning your own home

Anyone know anything about the process of converting a loft? Ours is part done (has a window) and we want to finish it off... Spoke to a quantity surveyor friend who said we'd need an architect to draw up plans - surely it's not that complicated?

at least 3 houses on my road are doing loft conversions and two of them are using a company 'another level' lofts - I have no idea if they're any good but it cant hurt to ask them if you can get over the dane bowers connection