Switching licensed designer before permit issuance

[David Rutledge]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for advice and will try to keep this as brief as possible.

We recently purchased a home in San Diego with submitted plans to add to the existing home as usual as build an two car garage and ADU in the backyard. The plans had already been through a few rounds of feedback when we purchased and have been due for a resubmittal since the start of September. I have been talking to the architect who drew up plans weekly and he has been telling me that the plans will be submitted "later that day" "by the end of the week" each time we talk. There has always been some sort of issue. The plans were not read, the city had a hold up etc... The latest was after telling me the plans were submitted 1.5 weeks ago I called the city last week and they said they have nothing from him.

I called the architect to figure out what was going on and he said that there was a glitch in the system that the city uses to upload plans and he is just waiting for the city to remedy it. I called the city to verify and again they said they had no idea what he was talking about.

I am at a point now where my trust with the architect has eroded and I am in the exact same boat as we were in at the time of purchase. This is my first time dealing with an architect and the permitting process so I am very much a novice but I am frustrated with the lack of progress and unless things get moving soon I am considering switching designers.

One of the draws of this property was the fact that the plans were "in the final stages" of approval at the time of purchase so I definitely do not want to start all over. I am hoping someone new can basically pick up from where we are at and submit these final changes to the city from the existing plans.

My question is if I do this do I need to have the original architect sign off on this since they are his original plans? I know we need to submit something to the city but I am not sure if any approval of any sort is required from the original architect before we move on to someone new?

Any advice or guidance on this would be really helpful.

Sorry for the long post. Thanks for your time.

David

[Bob Ritner]

The short answer that the architect must agree in writing to assigning a new architect or engineer of record and must agree to allow the new architect to take ownership of all work product and this is assuming that you can find a new architect that is willing to accept liability for plans that they did not fully prepare. You will also need to do this for any other engineering professionals that were part of the design team (structural engineer, civil engineer, geotech etc.) unless you can take over their contract from the old architect. This approach is the last resort.

Unless the property purchase agreement included an assignment of the architect's design contract that was signed by the architect, you have little leverage to compel them to perform other than throwing money at them to make it worth their while.

Option 1 (best option): I would highly recommend sitting down with them, getting a new contract in which they are contractually bound to you and throw enough additional money at them to get you to their front burner. This way you have leverage and if (when) there are issues during construction they are obligated to work towards a solution. This is the cleanest and likely the quickest solution.

Option 2: Hire a new designer, keep the original engineers (with a new contract) and have the new designer start over with enough design changes that the old architect does not sue you for copying their design. This will still be quicker than starting over, but you will still need to start from zero with architectural plans and plan check. 

Option 3: Start over with an entirely new design team (if engineers will not play ball).

Option 4: Have your broker contact the seller's broker and get the seller to push the architect since they advertised that the plans were almost ready. This may help wrap up plan check but you will still need the architect and engineers to perform certain services during construction so you will need a contract with them for this portion of the project.

Option 5 (worst option in my opinion): Change designers and get the old architect to release the plans as discussed in the first paragraph. This option is fraught with challenges and lets both the new and old architect off of the hook for design errors. There are other potential issues nuances with this solution that are beyond the scope of this short post.

This is a difficult and frustrating situation and I hope you can resolve it quickly!