Professional Practice and Ethics
The regulator and the right to practise
The Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON) was established by Decree No. 10 of 1969 and now operates under the Architects Registration Act in the Laws of the Federation. It keeps the register of architects and of architectural firms, sets the professional examinations (including the PPCE) and issues the annual practising licence. Only a registered person may use the title architect or stamp drawings for building-plan approval; practising on an expired licence, or letting an unregistered person stamp submissions, is an offence.
Conduct, conflicts and competition
The code of conduct demands competence, confidentiality and independence. Disclose any financial interest in a contractor, supplier or property affected by the commission; a secret commission or facilitation fee from a contractor is a disciplinary matter. You do not supplant an architect already appointed, and you do not win work by under-cutting the published professional scale of fees.
Appointment, copyright and liability
Every commission begins with a written agreement: parties, scope and stages, deliverables, fee basis (percentage of construction cost, lump sum or time charge), payment schedule, professional indemnity cover and dispute resolution, typically arbitration under the Arbitration and Mediation Act 2023. The architect normally owns the copyright in the drawings; the client receives a licence to build this project on this site, conditional on paying fees.
Worked example
A client ends the appointment after concept design and hands the drawings to a second architect. Copyright subsists in the first architect, and termination ends the client's licence, so the second architect must not build from those drawings without consent; the first architect can claim fees for work done plus a licence fee for reuse.
Traps
Assuming the client owns the drawings because they paid the fee; leaving registration renewal and the practising licence to chance; accepting a contractor's thank-you payment.