Client requesting letter of Sign off 1

[bigmig]

I have a client selling a recently completed project. The buyer wants me to write / sign a letter stating
that the project was building in compliance with my structural drawings. I have inspected things, and to my knowledge,
it is fine, but I am very reluctant to put that into a letter because I feel that this is way of taking the
fall for any type of blemish or hairline crack that may appear in the future....whether it was my fault or not.

In my viewpoint, that is the purpose of the building department and their act of issuing a Certificate of Occupancy.
I don't want to get in the way of that because they didn't pay me to accept that responsibility.

Any thoughts on this?
Thanks in advance.

 

[weldstan]

If the client did not specify "sign off" in the original Contract, you are not required to accede to his wishes. Often projects will have "sign offs" after mechanical completion and at project completion defined in the Contract. Signing is generally done by the Contractor's Project Manager or other Executive position as defined in the final Contract.

 

[JAE]

I wouldn't want to sign a letter like that.

I suppose you could carefully word the letter stating that you visited the site only X times, observed only for general compliance with the contract documents, etc. - essentially just stating what you did do and then adding a long list of things that you didn't do (continuous on-site inspection, material testing, etc.)

But I'd hesitate to even do that since I have no contractual obligation to the buyer of the property.

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[hokie66]

The seller should be able to furnish to the buyer all the certificates and approvals which were issued at the project's completion. And if I were the buyer, I would also insist on receiving the construction drawings and other contract documents used in constructing the building. But I would not issue any letter to the buyer. The process of construction is complete, and he has to rely on the current documentation.

 

[IRstuff]

Seems to me that you could write a letter that would encompass what you can certify, e.g. all the things that you have physically done and can conclude. Anything else can be caveated as "status unknown."

My wife, a doctor, gets this sort of request, i.e. "certify that this patient is completely free of disease or mental issues."

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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[MrHershey]

We get these sometimes. Just have to be very careful with the hedging like JAE mentions. State carefully what you observed and that you did not observe, that it appeared to be in general compliance with contract documents, that it's not possible to review all conditions and there may be isolated conditions that do not meet the contract documents (how do you know rebar is spaced at 12" and not 14"?), that your observation does not in any way supplant or supplement the other design consultants for their respective work or the contractor for the condition or construction of the finished structure, etc., etc. Stay away from big no-nos that could expand your scope or increase the standard of care. No 'inspecting', no 'certifying', no guarantees of anything.

Can try claiming it's not included in your scope/responsibility but that doesn't always fly, especially if you've agreed to provide support in obtaining necessary permits or similar language.

As an example, in one of our primary markets the building department requires the SEOR to verify that final special inspection reports do not indicate any unresolved code discrepancies before they'll issue the CO. Kind of pointless because those same reports are also furnished to the building department and they could certainly verify it themselves. But they do it to everyone and won't issue the CO without a letter from the SEOR verifying what they want verified. If we don't like it, we can't do projects in this market. Just have to be careful you don't overrepresent what you've done and don't agree to anything more than the standard of care as doing so is very likely outside the bounds of your liability insurance.