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