The Inspection That Never Happened

Mr Ho.

• Completion certification and supervision records are the core of the AP's statutory role. Signing them after three visits in eight months, and after resident staff were withdrawn, is false or at best reckless certification.
• Under the Buildings Ordinance an AP who certifies completion of works that do not comply with approved plans is exposed to prosecution and to removal from the register. The boxed-in beam and the displaced wall are deviations; whether they are material is a matter for the Building Authority, but the architect cannot decide that alone and quietly.
• On professional conduct: dishonesty in certification, failure to supervise, and misleading the Building Authority and purchasers. 'This is how the industry works' has no standing as a defence.

You as the new director.

• Personal exposure arises if you sign, approve or conceal. It also arises once you learn of the false certification and do nothing, because the practice continues to hold itself out on the strength of it.
• You cannot rely on being new. Once you know, you are answerable for your own conduct from that moment.
• The practice faces claims from the developer and from purchasers, possible regulatory action, and a professional indemnity notification problem, since late notification can prejudice cover.
• The developer's threat to sue for fees and withhold the next phase is pressure, not a legal argument. Giving in converts a past problem into a continuing deception.

The key distinction. The wall and the beam may be capable of regularisation: amendment plans, a structural check, a remedial detail, and disclosure to affected purchasers. That is a technical route. False certification is not regularised by fixing the wall. It requires disclosure and correction of the record, which is a separate and more difficult obligation.

1. Do not sign. Tell the project manager and Mr Ho in writing that you will not sign a remedial schedule or any certification until you have verified the as-built condition yourself.
2. Preserve the file. Secure site records, supervision diaries, photographs and correspondence. Do not alter or destroy anything; an allegation of destruction is worse than the original error.
3. Inspect and verify. Visit the site. Commission a measured survey of the affected flats, a structural check of the boxed-in beam, and a comparison of as-built against approved plans. Establish how widespread the problem is before deciding anything.
4. Notify internally and to insurers. Put the matter to the board in writing and notify professional indemnity insurers immediately on a precautionary basis. Take legal advice.
5. Advise the developer in writing. Set out the discrepancies, the need for an amendment submission if the deviations are material, and the consequences for the occupation permit record. Separate what can be regularised from what must be disclosed.
6. Correct the record. If the permit was obtained on a certification that was not true, take advice on the correct route to correct it with the Building Authority. Self-reporting is usually better than being reported.
7. Consider the regulator. Whether to report Mr Ho to the Architects Registration Board is a serious judgement requiring legal advice. Continuing to conceal a partner's false certification is not a neutral act.
8. Protect purchasers. If structural or safety issues affect flats already handed over, buyers are entitled to know. The practice cannot necessarily write to them directly without advice, but it can insist that the developer does.
9. Do not resign as a first move. Resignation without disclosure can look like flight. Get advice and then decide. If the board will not correct the record, you may have to leave and report.

The fee and the next phase. Say plainly that the practice's fee position and future work are irrelevant to certification. A client who asks you to certify a lie has already told you what the next phase would be like.

The defence. A disciplinary inquiry applies the standards of the profession, not the habits of a particular market. 'Everyone does it' fails for three reasons: it is factually doubtful, it is irrelevant to the standard of a reasonably competent architect, and it is aggravating rather than mitigating, because it shows the conduct was a practice rather than a single lapse.

What the Code requires.

• Honesty and integrity in all professional dealings, including certification and record-keeping.
• Competence and supervision. An architect must not sign or certify work not supervised or checked to a reasonable standard. Withdrawing resident staff because the client stopped paying does not remove the duty to supervise; it creates a decision point at which the practice should have told the client, and the Building Authority, what could and could not be certified.
• Compliance with the law, including the Buildings Ordinance and the conditions of approval.
• Not misleading clients, authorities, contractors or the public, including by omission.
• Independence. Commercial pressure from a client is not a reason to certify.

How the reasoning would run. The conduct sits at the serious end because it involves certification to a public authority on which purchasers relied, and the public interest in the integrity of the occupation permit system is the central issue. Mitigation would include early admission, cooperation, steps to correct the record, remediation, absence of personal gain and a previously clean record. Aggravation would include knowledge over time, concealment, seniority, and the involvement of junior staff. A pattern of supervision failures is treated more seriously than a single lapse, because it indicates that the practice's systems are inadequate.

The lesson. Supervision and certification are systems, not individual virtues. A written inspection protocol, a signing register, a rule that withdrawal of site staff triggers written notice to the client and a review of what can be certified, and a board-level escalation route for any request to certify something doubtful would have prevented this. The case is really about how a fee dispute quietly becomes a certification dispute.