No Contract, A Borrowed Plan, and a Sagging Slab
Architect X was engaged verbally by a developer for the complete design of a 2,400 m2, four-storey commercial building, at 5% of construction cost. X prepared schematic and design development drawings, and the building permit was issued on X's signed and sealed plans. The client had paid 30% of the fee. The client then hired his brother-in-law as contractor, built without retaining X for supervision, and X visited the site twice informally at the client's request. The second-floor slab now visibly sags and a tenant has complained. The client refuses to pay the balance and has given X's drawings to another architect for an identical building across town.
1. What is Architect X entitled to, and what should X do first?
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Separate the money claim from the drawings claim - they run on different legal tracks and should not be argued together.
Money. There is no written contract, but a contract exists: offer, acceptance and the verbal 5% rate are enough to establish one, and X's delivered drawings are the consideration. X is entitled to be paid for the services actually rendered, on a quantum meruit basis where the agreed fee schedule is incomplete. That means: reconstruct the deliverable list, the percentage complete at the date of termination, and the value of each stage. The 30% already paid is credited.
First steps, in order:
- A written demand letter setting out the stages delivered, the value claimed and a payment deadline.
- Offer mediation or the dispute mechanism in the professional documents before filing anything - a collection suit is slow and expensive, and the client knows it.
- Then a small claims or collection action if the amount allows, or a civil action.
What X should not do: withhold nothing that endangers life. Documents relating to a building that is being occupied are not a bargaining chip - send the relevant structural information regardless of the fee dispute, and state in writing that the sending is not a waiver of the claim.
2. The client is using X's plans for a second building and has passed them to another architect. What are the professional and legal positions?
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Two distinct wrongs, both actionable.
- Ownership of the instruments of service. Under R.A. 9266 and the standard professional documents, the architect retains ownership of the drawings and specifications; the client acquires a licence to use them for the specific project for which they were made. Using them for a second site is outside that licence. The copyright in the drawings also vests in the author. X should send a written notice: the use is unauthorised, the licence does not extend to the second site, and the drawings must be returned or destroyed.
- The second architect. A competent architect should not adopt another architect's signed and sealed drawings for a different project. Those drawings carry X's seal and X's name; reissuing them for another site means either the second architect copies them (an infringement and an ethical breach) or X's seal appears on a building X never saw. Notify the second architect in writing, factually and without accusation, that the drawings were not released for that site - most will step back immediately once told.
Practical advice: X's leverage is the notice, not the lawsuit. A clear, dated, professional letter at this point usually ends the practice, and it protects X from the worst outcome - X's seal ending up on a building X never designed.
3. The slab sags. Was X responsible by visiting the site twice, and how should X now handle the complaint?
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The visits are the danger, and the answer is documentation, not silence.
Scope of duty. X was engaged for design. Signing and sealing the plans for the permit makes X responsible for the design; it does not make X the construction supervisor, and X was not retained for that service. But informal visits create an appearance of supervision, and an architect who spots a defect and says nothing can be found liable for the silence. The two visits cut both ways - they may create an assumption of oversight, but they also gave X knowledge X cannot now disclaim.
What X should do now:
- Investigate, do not certify. Request the structural engineer's investigation of the slab - depth, reinforcement as placed against the drawings, prop removal timing, curing. A sagging slab is usually a construction failure, but it can be a design or detailing failure, and X should not assume either.
- Establish the as-built against the design. If the contractor built to different spans, thinner slab, fewer bars or with props removed early, the record settles the question. Ask for the contractor's pour records and shop drawings.
- Write a letter stating X's scope of services, that X was not retained for construction supervision, that no certificate of completion was issued by X, and that X is nevertheless assisting with the investigation. That letter is the difference between a professional who was excluded and a professional who walked away.
- Never issue a certificate or a sign-off for work X did not supervise. If pressed, refuse in writing and explain why.
For the future: the lesson is procedural. A written contract on the standard documents, with the scope of services and the excluded services named explicitly, would have prevented all three problems in this case - the unpaid fee, the borrowed drawings, and the ambiguous visits.