Client Services

After the site visit and feasibility study, once both sides know exactly what the job is. The contract should set out the scope stage by stage, the fee and payment milestones, the schedule for each stage, an explicit list of what falls outside our responsibility — municipal charges and authority fees, for example — and termination terms that work both ways. We send the draft before the signing meeting so you have time to read it or show it to your own legal adviser.

Payments are tied to deliverables, not to the calendar. Typically a portion falls due on signing, a portion on approval of the concept drawings, a portion when the complete drawing set is submitted to the municipality, and the balance on issue of the permit or on completion of each construction stage. The exact percentages are written into the contract, and we invoice nothing until the deliverable is actually met.

No. Permit charges, engineering-organisation fees, insurance, fire-department fees and utility connections are all paid in the owner's name directly to those bodies, and we hand you the receipts. Our fee covers engineering services and the administrative follow-up only. We give you an early estimate of these external costs before you sign, but the final figures are set by the municipality's own calculation and are outside our control.

It depends on the stage. Changes during the architectural concept phase are normally absorbed at no extra cost. Once the architecture is approved and structural and MEP work has started, any change ripples across several drawings and carries both a cost and a time impact. After the drawings have gone to the municipality, a change means amending the file and sometimes a second commission review. In all three cases we give you a written cost and time estimate first, and nothing starts without your approval.

Because much of the route is not in our hands. The number of clearances depends on where the plot sits: a property near a metro line, inside a historic fabric or fronting a main thoroughfare goes through several more steps than a straightforward plot on a side street. Review by the Article 5 planning commission, or handling of past violations at the Article 100 commission, runs on its own timetable. We guarantee the timing of our own work, give realistic ranges for the external steps, update the tracking system weekly and send a written report every 15 days.

Yes. Termination terms are written into the contract for both sides. On termination, the settlement is calculated on the stages actually completed, and all documents, drawings produced and file records are handed to you within 10 working days. The municipal file is transferred to your next engineer or firm with a formal letter of introduction — holding a file hostage is not something we do.

The municipal completion certificate, as-built architectural, structural and MEP drawings, approvals from the fire department, lift inspectorate and utility providers, manuals and warranties for the installed equipment, and where required the subdivision record needed to obtain individual title deeds. The full list is written into the contract at the outset so there is nothing to argue about at the end.

Under the engineering-organisation regulations, the designers' and supervising engineers' liability for structural defects runs for 10 years from the date of the completion certificate. For construction work we carried out ourselves, the defects-liability period is set in the contract — usually 12 months for finishes and building services — and remedial work during that period is free of charge. Project drawings and records stay in our archive for at least 10 years, and we provide copies whenever you need them.