I live and work in a state that does not require an architect's stamp on permit drawings for a single family residence to be built. Without going into great detail, I fear that I have a client who may want to terminate services' at a point where a builder has all or most of the drawings they'd need for permit drawings and could 'build off of it' without the additional construction drawings and details I intend to provide prior to construction. Essentially, I'm afraid the client could be trying to get out of thousands of dollars of contracted services yet to be executed to save a buck.
All of my drawings have information in the titleblock that the information is "architect's property and ... ... ..." and big "NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION" but is that enough to protect me from this risk?
If you live in a similar state, what contractual provisions do you employ to prevent this from happening? Thanks for your input in advance.
I don't think you can prevent the owner and contractor from acting this way without taking them to court, assuming you have a tough copyright clause in your contract. If the owner and contractor want to cut you out, then maybe you should think about how to make a clean separation while minimizing liability rather than preventing them from doing so. Maybe you can negotiate some kind of liability release agreement and a termination fee in exchange for providing flattened PDFs of your work product to date. Curious what others have to say.
Contracts in States That Don't Require Architect Stamp
I live and work in a state that does not require an architect's stamp on permit drawings for a single family residence to be built. Without going into great detail, I fear that I have a client who may want to terminate services' at a point where a builder has all or most of the drawings they'd need for permit drawings and could 'build off of it' without the additional construction drawings and details I intend to provide prior to construction. Essentially, I'm afraid the client could be trying to get out of thousands of dollars of contracted services yet to be executed to save a buck.
All of my drawings have information in the titleblock that the information is "architect's property and ... ... ..." and big "NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION" but is that enough to protect me from this risk?
If you live in a similar state, what contractual provisions do you employ to prevent this from happening? Thanks for your input in advance.
I don't think you can prevent the owner and contractor from acting this way without taking them to court, assuming you have a tough copyright clause in your contract. If the owner and contractor want to cut you out, then maybe you should think about how to make a clean separation while minimizing liability rather than preventing them from doing so. Maybe you can negotiate some kind of liability release agreement and a termination fee in exchange for providing flattened PDFs of your work product to date. Curious what others have to say.
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