A friend of mine ask me to stamp their drawings for a shop remodel for permit. I think that is city requirement. Of course I will review their drawings before put my stamp on it. I just wonder how much usually people charge to stamp others drawings?
this is no joke .... it it reality and why we find ourselves complaining about being underpaid and undervalued. at some point, you have to ask yourself if such an action is ethical. if yes, then take the money and the responsibilty that the stamp affords you. However, if your answer is no, then be prepared to watch your friend walk out the door and to the next sucker waiting with a hand out and palm up.
yeh, when we do this, we actually redraw everything and put our title block on it and redo what we see fit - usually ADA stuff that the "designer" didn't pick up on. We also take all the comments from the building dept and are the go-to for the contractor also. I don't work on these, but I think they do them for about $1000, for a small tenant space in a strip mall for example.
I don't think this is a problem ethically, if they're someone that Reason has worked with and knows they do a good job. I may feel differently if it was a random person, but if he looks at the drawings and feel comfortable that at least as far as health and safety and access and buildability go they are what Reason would have done himself, then I don't see the problem with that. One of the ways young people build their portfolios is to do small jobs freelance and get licensed friends to provide the stamp.
Reason, unfortunately, I don't really have any fee suggestions for this, but I hope you figure it out to everybody's satisfaction.
it is clearly stated by the law that you are not supposed to do that. by stamping it, you are basically entering a legal relationship with the end user whom you don't know. if anything happens, you will be the responsible party and you have no contract and that is illegal too to architecting a building project without a contract.
it is not about friendship but liability and possible litigation. i have a friend whom i share the office space and we talk about our respective projects all the time and ask each other questions. he is very competant and does good work. i'd stamp his work if he asks me and puts my name in the contract, but he knowing the rules, never does. thanks.
here's a small side comment...all in san francisco, btw.
a firm i used to work with had two principals, both of whom had M.Arch degrees. they did not go professionally as architects, they were simply lastname + lastname design
principal A was unlicensed and uninterested in getting so...she did most of the new business, permit expediting, client meetings, budgeting, etc. Principal B was more on the design side, detailing, getting sets together, solving design issues, etc. He was in the process of licensure.
They did mostly residential remodels, some new construction, and a small bit of commercial TI work.
we took ALL of our drawings to a local architect they had known for a number of years who would give the drawings a relatively cursory review and stamp them for $200/set. plan-check revisions and anything else that needed to be wet-signed was another $200/set. i would sit there with him while he reviewed the sets and answer his basic questions about Use/Occupancy/Egress/Etc and he'd go ahead with the stamping.
not getting into the liability quandary associated with this guys firm being known as plan stampers...what's a developing/emerging architect to do when they're in private practice yet haven't finished licensing?
(fyi - this process got them all in a bit of hot water with a client who was evicting one of his tenants out of one of the firms designed TI's for non-payment of rent when the end-user (not the client) sued everyone he could think of. then the client counter-sued the arch firm for misrepresentation WHEN HE KNEW ALL ALONG WHAT THE STORY WAS AND HAD HAD THEM DO HIS HOME REMODEL TOO.)
with friends/clients like that...who needs enemies?
for those who say it's unethical: is the level of service that Strawbeary's firm provides theoretically high enough to satisfy? Or do you think that it's never, ever, under any circumstances acceptable?
$500 is typical for this sort of thing, but it's rarely used for anything more than an interior renovation with an ADA bathroom. don't stamp a full set.
he did, and it does. he was stamping for more offices than just ours. i figure he was clearing in the $50k range just for the stamping. 5 sets a week @ $200 adds up pretty quickly.
i'm not here to debate the efficacy or ethical comport of his practice, or to support it or not...just presenting an example with which i was involved..
NCARB's standard is not adopted by all states. The laws on plan stamping vary widely from state to state. In some you are absolutely forbidden from stamping anything on which you were not present and in a supervisory position during the production of the drawings and design. In those states the only way around this legally is to redraw the set yourself or in your own office, under your supervision.
But most states have more lenient statutes that allow plan stamping under some circumstances. For example some allow it if you "review" the set - though some also require that you provide a written summary of your review of the drawing set, in support of that.
You gain possession of the drawings and they become your property, put your titleblock, etc.. on them and run them for permit. Once the drawings are approved, the permit is granted to the owner and the drawings return to the possession of the previous entity.
I know people who do this as a living and they only take jobs with minimal chance of liability. Your mileage may vary.
I agree with the $2000.00 figure for full sets, as if it is about Liability insurance you should charge to cover the cost of it then follow up with the field review to ensure that the work gets done correctly and charge them for that on top.
charge a) 3 times the E&O premium(s) you will incur to provide insurance to cover your liability exposure, plus b) an hourly rate for every hour you have to put into the deal to make it work.
Thanks for all the responses.
I could do the drawing, but I just don't have the time. The question is I will review it for sure, I don't see the difference between I prepare it personally and I review it and make sure it is prepared correctly?
Also liability insurance that is something I need to think about. I don't have it, since I don't have my own business yet, eventhough I did registered a firm before on the side. Move a couple of wall in an IT job, how much liability that involved? Should I avoid stamping it all together? What the point to get my license if I can never use it to make some money?
Why charge the guy....hell give it to him for free....what the heck does it take to put ink to paper....Maybe he will come back to you with a real zinger of a project....ya right.....a fool is always a fool....
what can I say.
mightylittle: I generally find your comments to be reasonable. Please do not take what I'm about to say personally...
what's a developing/emerging architect to do when they're in private practice yet haven't finished licensing?
Answer: Do not enter into private practice until you're licensed. It's as simple as that.
As someone currently in the licensing stages - and trying very hard to get licensed - I am taken aback by this question. It's a disgrace to think there are people out there who will take shortcuts to undermine the integrity of the profession.
and to Reason: did you only get licensed to "make some money?" Oh dear.
unfortunately, If you look around at what people are building: all of the unsustainable, non-universally designed, ill-conceived, SUV housing crap out there, well...
The profession is really many professions and the one the AIA talks about exists at places like Gensler. What small practitioners do spans a broad range and the profession is today between outsourcing and rising entry-level labor costs. We'll see how it works out...
DCA, I'm in total agreement with you. I was as put off by mighty's comment as you were - was it in jest, mightylittle? Because you know I adore you and that seems out of character.
If you're not an architect, you don't pretend to be one. Three years isn't that long to wait out of school to be registered and if you complain that NCARB, IDP etc. takes more than three years, well, I can point to at least two motivated people I know who did it in that time frame (it took me 10, but I wasn't that motivated).
meta, in your example, it's simple: you joint venture with someone who IS registered. Please don't fault DCA for having impeccable ethics, as I can also point to plenty of examples of poor ethics that ALSO turned out to be bad business sense.
i'm sure the "stamping guy" in those big archi firm did not prepare any those drawings neither...
i do not see anything wrong with stamping other's drawing, u an architect, u are trained to check whether the drawings if they affect public health and safty... for a simple shop remodelling, is really piece of cake.
Make sure that you check your state's statutes for the language related to plan stamping. Most states have specific policies on this, in response NCARB's attempt to make everyone adopt the same policy.
If you are in a state that does not allow "plan stamping" at all you can lose your licensed and incur fines if you do this project.
In my state "plan stamping" is not allowed except in the case of so-called "cookie cutter" projects - for example chain motels and restaurants that are built repeatedly from the same plan in multiple locations. On any other type of project you're basically required to have done or directly supervised the drawings you're stamping, and merely "reviewing" them is stated to be inadequate if you are not employed in and by the firm that produced them.
There are examples in the state board's minutes in which people have been reported anonymously for this and fined. Here if you get caught for something like this once your online license verification page will always show that your license has not been "continuously in good standing".
So check into it directly with the board and don't count on what other people do in other states.
it's weird how you think one way before becoming licensed and another after becoming licensed. before i had no problem asking someone to sign and seal drawings - i was really naive and only cared about some extra ka-ching - now i don't think i can ever casually do something like that, it'd have to be a partnership, money aside, i'd have to have total control or have the project developed with my complete oversight.
DCA, LB, no offense meant, really. maybe a bit of a misunderstanding...
i misused the terms emerging/developing because in the situation that i was offering in the way of example, the architects were both seasoned professionals, one of whom was long on the license track and one of whom was not,
by way of back-story so y'all don't think my friends were a bunch of spineless crooks...both them had finished their degrees a decade ago and had spent the prior years in a series of big firms spanning the country. these were apparently big offices where you were expected to work more than you were expected to advance your IDP/ARE's. (as far as i know it...i wasn't there...) from what i hear on this board, this is not too uncommon, am i wrong there?
suddenly, they found themselves to be 35+ and needed out of the big firms in a big way...kids, marriages, etc., and they weren't going to wait around to finish the ARE's before starting their own practice.
so they struck out on their own while simultaneously focusing on licensure, at least one of them. the other one focused on growing the business and raising her kid. during the time i was there, the principal working on ARE's was more than halfway theorugh with CA's many-tiered process, and would finish the last and final oral exam while i was still working there. to an individual like myself who has admittedly minimal experience, this seemed like a fine and ethical situation. these are not the people i think you're worried about, but i could be wrong.
i can see where DCA's comments wouldn't even allow for this sort of behavior though, and that's fine. everyone's opinions count for something. i'm not really defending, supporting, condemning or condoning any of it specifically...just clarifying.
that being said, i would agree with you that 24yo's fresh out of school should NOT be attempting to go into private practice without finishing licensing, and i wasn't suggesting that they do.
I'm resigned to the fact that...after 9 years of study, blood sweat and tears I was finally able to call myself "an architect."
The clock was all but reset when I move to the USA, and it's going to take me about another 5 years to be a licensed architect here. The thought of calling myself "architect", while tempting, is not something I'm willing to take a risk on (the Nevada state board are VERY touchy on this subject, in fact they're probably watching right now...)
Oh, and we don't stamp drawings back in NZ / Australia. Yet. Only engineers do that. Wait 2 years and see.
My former boss is licensed in NY, but not NJ. For a project in NJ, he had another architect stamp the drawings without even reviewing them. The client was kept in the dark. I tried to make the point to my boss that the "plan stamper" should at least look at the drawings, but I was basically told to shut up. Just one of the reasons I moved on.
--Brooklynboy, Architect (appellation void outside NY State, but possibly valid overseas)
Sep 12, 07 12:02 am ·
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How much should I charge to stamp the drawing?
A friend of mine ask me to stamp their drawings for a shop remodel for permit. I think that is city requirement. Of course I will review their drawings before put my stamp on it. I just wonder how much usually people charge to stamp others drawings?
when you stamp, you're effectively saying 'these were prepared under my supervision.' so what would your liability insurer say?
$299.99, plus tax of course
eastcoaststarch03...i'll do it for $289.99...and throw in a free copy of the set!!!
seriously, this has got to be a joke.
whatever, we'll do it for $99 AND we won't even look it over and make stupid comments!
DONT STAMP OTHER PEOPLE'S DRAWINGS. IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, YOU ARE FUCKED
this is no joke .... it it reality and why we find ourselves complaining about being underpaid and undervalued. at some point, you have to ask yourself if such an action is ethical. if yes, then take the money and the responsibilty that the stamp affords you. However, if your answer is no, then be prepared to watch your friend walk out the door and to the next sucker waiting with a hand out and palm up.
i'll even throw in a sketchup rendering, beat that!
yeh, when we do this, we actually redraw everything and put our title block on it and redo what we see fit - usually ADA stuff that the "designer" didn't pick up on. We also take all the comments from the building dept and are the go-to for the contractor also. I don't work on these, but I think they do them for about $1000, for a small tenant space in a strip mall for example.
Oh, and they are our most profitable projects by the way!
I don't think this is a problem ethically, if they're someone that Reason has worked with and knows they do a good job. I may feel differently if it was a random person, but if he looks at the drawings and feel comfortable that at least as far as health and safety and access and buildability go they are what Reason would have done himself, then I don't see the problem with that. One of the ways young people build their portfolios is to do small jobs freelance and get licensed friends to provide the stamp.
Reason, unfortunately, I don't really have any fee suggestions for this, but I hope you figure it out to everybody's satisfaction.
it is clearly stated by the law that you are not supposed to do that. by stamping it, you are basically entering a legal relationship with the end user whom you don't know. if anything happens, you will be the responsible party and you have no contract and that is illegal too to architecting a building project without a contract.
it is not about friendship but liability and possible litigation. i have a friend whom i share the office space and we talk about our respective projects all the time and ask each other questions. he is very competant and does good work. i'd stamp his work if he asks me and puts my name in the contract, but he knowing the rules, never does. thanks.
here's a small side comment...all in san francisco, btw.
a firm i used to work with had two principals, both of whom had M.Arch degrees. they did not go professionally as architects, they were simply lastname + lastname design
principal A was unlicensed and uninterested in getting so...she did most of the new business, permit expediting, client meetings, budgeting, etc. Principal B was more on the design side, detailing, getting sets together, solving design issues, etc. He was in the process of licensure.
They did mostly residential remodels, some new construction, and a small bit of commercial TI work.
we took ALL of our drawings to a local architect they had known for a number of years who would give the drawings a relatively cursory review and stamp them for $200/set. plan-check revisions and anything else that needed to be wet-signed was another $200/set. i would sit there with him while he reviewed the sets and answer his basic questions about Use/Occupancy/Egress/Etc and he'd go ahead with the stamping.
not getting into the liability quandary associated with this guys firm being known as plan stampers...what's a developing/emerging architect to do when they're in private practice yet haven't finished licensing?
(fyi - this process got them all in a bit of hot water with a client who was evicting one of his tenants out of one of the firms designed TI's for non-payment of rent when the end-user (not the client) sued everyone he could think of. then the client counter-sued the arch firm for misrepresentation WHEN HE KNEW ALL ALONG WHAT THE STORY WAS AND HAD HAD THEM DO HIS HOME REMODEL TOO.)
with friends/clients like that...who needs enemies?
$200 to stamp a set??? More like $2000. $200 doesnt even cover your time and the cost of the damn ink
for those who say it's unethical: is the level of service that Strawbeary's firm provides theoretically high enough to satisfy? Or do you think that it's never, ever, under any circumstances acceptable?
$200 was indicative of the time he spent on it...rarely was i there for more than 15minutes. that's $800/hour, minimum!
$500 is typical for this sort of thing, but it's rarely used for anything more than an interior renovation with an ADA bathroom. don't stamp a full set.
$200 for the stampers time doesn't account for the professional liability insurance premium...assuming they even had it.
he did, and it does. he was stamping for more offices than just ours. i figure he was clearing in the $50k range just for the stamping. 5 sets a week @ $200 adds up pretty quickly.
i'm not here to debate the efficacy or ethical comport of his practice, or to support it or not...just presenting an example with which i was involved..
i don't think i'd be able to sleep at night doing that.
it seems like one E&O suit would collapse that house of cards.
NCARB's standard is not adopted by all states. The laws on plan stamping vary widely from state to state. In some you are absolutely forbidden from stamping anything on which you were not present and in a supervisory position during the production of the drawings and design. In those states the only way around this legally is to redraw the set yourself or in your own office, under your supervision.
But most states have more lenient statutes that allow plan stamping under some circumstances. For example some allow it if you "review" the set - though some also require that you provide a written summary of your review of the drawing set, in support of that.
The proper way to do it is as a "joint venture."
You gain possession of the drawings and they become your property, put your titleblock, etc.. on them and run them for permit. Once the drawings are approved, the permit is granted to the owner and the drawings return to the possession of the previous entity.
I know people who do this as a living and they only take jobs with minimal chance of liability. Your mileage may vary.
I agree with the $2000.00 figure for full sets, as if it is about Liability insurance you should charge to cover the cost of it then follow up with the field review to ensure that the work gets done correctly and charge them for that on top.
charge a) 3 times the E&O premium(s) you will incur to provide insurance to cover your liability exposure, plus b) an hourly rate for every hour you have to put into the deal to make it work.
Thanks for all the responses.
I could do the drawing, but I just don't have the time. The question is I will review it for sure, I don't see the difference between I prepare it personally and I review it and make sure it is prepared correctly?
Also liability insurance that is something I need to think about. I don't have it, since I don't have my own business yet, eventhough I did registered a firm before on the side. Move a couple of wall in an IT job, how much liability that involved? Should I avoid stamping it all together? What the point to get my license if I can never use it to make some money?
Why charge the guy....hell give it to him for free....what the heck does it take to put ink to paper....Maybe he will come back to you with a real zinger of a project....ya right.....a fool is always a fool....
what can I say.
mightylittle: I generally find your comments to be reasonable. Please do not take what I'm about to say personally...
what's a developing/emerging architect to do when they're in private practice yet haven't finished licensing?
Answer: Do not enter into private practice until you're licensed. It's as simple as that.
As someone currently in the licensing stages - and trying very hard to get licensed - I am taken aback by this question. It's a disgrace to think there are people out there who will take shortcuts to undermine the integrity of the profession.
and to Reason: did you only get licensed to "make some money?" Oh dear.
"integrity of the profession"
unfortunately, If you look around at what people are building: all of the unsustainable, non-universally designed, ill-conceived, SUV housing crap out there, well...
The profession is really many professions and the one the AIA talks about exists at places like Gensler. What small practitioners do spans a broad range and the profession is today between outsourcing and rising entry-level labor costs. We'll see how it works out...
DCA, I'm in total agreement with you. I was as put off by mighty's comment as you were - was it in jest, mightylittle? Because you know I adore you and that seems out of character.
If you're not an architect, you don't pretend to be one. Three years isn't that long to wait out of school to be registered and if you complain that NCARB, IDP etc. takes more than three years, well, I can point to at least two motivated people I know who did it in that time frame (it took me 10, but I wasn't that motivated).
meta, in your example, it's simple: you joint venture with someone who IS registered. Please don't fault DCA for having impeccable ethics, as I can also point to plenty of examples of poor ethics that ALSO turned out to be bad business sense.
i'm sure the "stamping guy" in those big archi firm did not prepare any those drawings neither...
i do not see anything wrong with stamping other's drawing, u an architect, u are trained to check whether the drawings if they affect public health and safty... for a simple shop remodelling, is really piece of cake.
Make sure that you check your state's statutes for the language related to plan stamping. Most states have specific policies on this, in response NCARB's attempt to make everyone adopt the same policy.
If you are in a state that does not allow "plan stamping" at all you can lose your licensed and incur fines if you do this project.
In my state "plan stamping" is not allowed except in the case of so-called "cookie cutter" projects - for example chain motels and restaurants that are built repeatedly from the same plan in multiple locations. On any other type of project you're basically required to have done or directly supervised the drawings you're stamping, and merely "reviewing" them is stated to be inadequate if you are not employed in and by the firm that produced them.
There are examples in the state board's minutes in which people have been reported anonymously for this and fined. Here if you get caught for something like this once your online license verification page will always show that your license has not been "continuously in good standing".
So check into it directly with the board and don't count on what other people do in other states.
it's weird how you think one way before becoming licensed and another after becoming licensed. before i had no problem asking someone to sign and seal drawings - i was really naive and only cared about some extra ka-ching - now i don't think i can ever casually do something like that, it'd have to be a partnership, money aside, i'd have to have total control or have the project developed with my complete oversight.
decide on a price for your soul and charge that much.
I'll give you a glass of bourbon for yours, spark ;-)
Actually, wait...that's the price for mine.
ok ok, $150 is as low as i'll go.
$150 plus tax; you drive a hard bargain ECA03. Were you are car salesman at one time?
Liberty - I have a strong sense of ethics...
only Maker's Mark or Woodford Reserve. And it has to be two glasses with ample ice.
However, if accompanied by barbecue, I would throw in a couple of phony field reports.
[hijack]
DCA, LB, no offense meant, really. maybe a bit of a misunderstanding...
i misused the terms emerging/developing because in the situation that i was offering in the way of example, the architects were both seasoned professionals, one of whom was long on the license track and one of whom was not,
by way of back-story so y'all don't think my friends were a bunch of spineless crooks...both them had finished their degrees a decade ago and had spent the prior years in a series of big firms spanning the country. these were apparently big offices where you were expected to work more than you were expected to advance your IDP/ARE's. (as far as i know it...i wasn't there...) from what i hear on this board, this is not too uncommon, am i wrong there?
suddenly, they found themselves to be 35+ and needed out of the big firms in a big way...kids, marriages, etc., and they weren't going to wait around to finish the ARE's before starting their own practice.
so they struck out on their own while simultaneously focusing on licensure, at least one of them. the other one focused on growing the business and raising her kid. during the time i was there, the principal working on ARE's was more than halfway theorugh with CA's many-tiered process, and would finish the last and final oral exam while i was still working there. to an individual like myself who has admittedly minimal experience, this seemed like a fine and ethical situation. these are not the people i think you're worried about, but i could be wrong.
i can see where DCA's comments wouldn't even allow for this sort of behavior though, and that's fine. everyone's opinions count for something. i'm not really defending, supporting, condemning or condoning any of it specifically...just clarifying.
that being said, i would agree with you that 24yo's fresh out of school should NOT be attempting to go into private practice without finishing licensing, and i wasn't suggesting that they do.
sorry for rattling your ethics. ;-)
-ml
[/hijack]
I'm resigned to the fact that...after 9 years of study, blood sweat and tears I was finally able to call myself "an architect."
The clock was all but reset when I move to the USA, and it's going to take me about another 5 years to be a licensed architect here. The thought of calling myself "architect", while tempting, is not something I'm willing to take a risk on (the Nevada state board are VERY touchy on this subject, in fact they're probably watching right now...)
Oh, and we don't stamp drawings back in NZ / Australia. Yet. Only engineers do that. Wait 2 years and see.
10-4, mightylittle.
My former boss is licensed in NY, but not NJ. For a project in NJ, he had another architect stamp the drawings without even reviewing them. The client was kept in the dark. I tried to make the point to my boss that the "plan stamper" should at least look at the drawings, but I was basically told to shut up. Just one of the reasons I moved on.
--Brooklynboy, Architect (appellation void outside NY State, but possibly valid overseas)
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