Pressure to Certify a Building That Departs From Its Approved Plans
During construction of a five-storey mixed-use building in Colombo 6, approved by the Colombo Municipal Council on plans the architect prepared, the client instructs the contractor to omit the second staircase serving floors three to five and to extend the fifth-floor slab 1.2 m into the rear setback. The architect learns of this on site. A week later the client instructs the architect in writing to sign the council's Certificate of Conformity at completion, with as-built drawings showing the approved layout rather than what has been built, so that the building can be occupied on schedule. The client describes the omissions as value engineering and says the second staircase is only needed on paper, and warns that the architect's final fee of LKR 2.4 million will not be released unless the certificate is signed. If the fifth floor is let as a restaurant, the occupant load exceeds 250 persons.
1. Identify the legal and ethical obligations in play.
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Four overlapping sets of obligation are engaged.
Statutory. The certificate is a declaration that the building complies with the approved plans and the conditions of approval. The second staircase is a means of escape; the rear setback is a planning control for light, ventilation and fire spread. Both are material departures, not finishing details, and both engage the council's approval regime and fire safety requirements.
Professional. Registration under the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects carries a Code of Ethics: competence, integrity, no misrepresentation, and a duty to the public that is not displaced by a client's commercial interest. Signing a false certificate is professional misconduct.
Contractual. The appointment obliges the architect to administer the project lawfully. No instruction from a client can require the architect to commit an unlawful act, and the obligation to warn of non-compliance is part of the service, not an optional extra.
Duty to warn and report. Where the omission creates a risk to life in a building with an occupant load above 250, the duty extends beyond advising the client to informing the authority, because occupancy will otherwise proceed on a false basis.
The architect's own earlier certification of the plans does not make the later certificate a formality; it makes the discrepancy the architect's responsibility to catch.
2. What are the consequences of signing the certificate as instructed?
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Work through the consequences, because the client's framing - one signature, on schedule, fee released - hides all of them.
Criminal exposure. A false statutory declaration is an offence, and the architect is the declarant. The council relied on the architect's professional standing when it accepted the plans; that reliance is exactly what makes the false statement serious.
Professional exposure. A complaint to the SLIA disciplinary process can lead to suspension or removal from the register. That ends the practice far more completely than losing one fee.
Civil exposure. If a fire occurs and the missing staircase is found to have contributed to injury or death, the architect is a defendant with a signed false certificate in the file. Personal liability in such a case is not capped by the fee.
Insurance. Professional indemnity policies typically exclude dishonest or illegal acts. The architect would be uninsured precisely when the claim is largest.
The fee. LKR 2.4 million is the smallest number in this analysis. The client's threat converts a fee entitlement into a bribe to break the law, and treating it as a negotiation is itself the misconduct.
Signing also harms the client and the eventual occupants, which is why the duty runs to them as well.
3. Set out, step by step, how you would respond and what escalation route you would use.
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Sequence the response so that the record is complete before anything is escalated.
- Inspect and record. Carry out an as-built survey, photograph the omitted staircase zone and the extended slab, and date every note. Facts first.
- Warn in writing. Write to the client confirming that the works depart from the approved plans and the approval conditions, that the building is not compliant, and that you will not sign a certificate that says otherwise. State the fire-safety consequence in plain terms.
- Instruct the contractor. Issue a written instruction to stop further work on the non-compliant elements and to make safe what has been built.
- Offer the lawful route. Give the client a compliant path: reinstate the second staircase, remove the 1.2 m extension, or submit amended plans for approval - but only if the amended scheme genuinely satisfies escape and setback requirements, which for this occupant load it probably does not.
- Escalate if the client proceeds. Notify the Colombo Municipal Council and the fire authority in writing that the completed building does not match the approved plans and that you have declined to certify it. This is a protected step, not a betrayal.
- Separate the fee. Claim the LKR 2.4 million under the Conditions of Engagement through the dispute provisions, and record expressly that the claim is unrelated to certification.
- Do not simply walk away. Arrange a formal handover of any statutory role, or notify the council that you have ceased to act, so that no duty is left unattended.
- Keep the SLIA informed if pressure continues, and retain all correspondence.