Contractor Stealing My Plans 2

[bigmig]

Found out today that my "friend" who had mysteriously stopped asking us to design his houses for a 2 year period had been deleting the title block, adding the home address, and developing without us. What things can we do to prevent this from happening in the future? Some note on the plans requiring engineer confirmation? A special title block? We used a particular font, which he wasn't smart enough to find. A surveyor contacted us asking for our cad work to stake foundations. He sent us "our" plan set, and we didn't recognize the owner or address.

 

[Lomarandil]

If he's falsely representing that you've performed engineering as part of his plans, you take that to the board.

If he's stealing your plan content (details, etc) and applying them to other projects, but isn't required to or representing that you've engineered this new project... that sounds more like a contractual and intellectual property legal case to me.

 

[bigmig]

If he's falsely representing that you've performed engineering as part of his plans, you take that to the board.

If he's stealing your plan content (details, etc) and applying them to other projects, but isn't required to or representing that you've engineered this new project... that sounds more like a contractual and intellectual property legal case to me.

he was built a home I engineered, then turned and built several more without telling me, using the same plan, but modifying the title block so the building dept wouldn't know.

 

[phamENG]

he was built a home I engineered, then turned and built several more without telling me, using the same plan, but modifying the title block so the building dept wouldn't know.

Then you need to contact your lawyer now. I hope you had a good contract.

 

[Eng16080]

What things can we do to prevent this from happening in the future?

I'd guess people get away with this most of the time because most likely nobody notices. With that said, I have a clause in my Engineering Agreement which would hopefully protect me if I ended up in this situation:

This Agreement is for a single structural design, which is to be used for construction only once and only in the specific project location indicated in this Agreement, and is not to be reused for any purpose. To the extent that the applicable design codes or other conditions have changed during the course of the project, the design shall not be used without the necessary changes being made. Such changes shall be considered outside the Scope of Services.

 

[IRstuff]

Practicing engineering without a license is reportable.

 

[bigmig]

Practicing engineering without a license is reportable.

he is a contractor.

 

[IRstuff]

he is a contractor.

That's the point; it's against the law for them to producing engineering drawings of any kind on their own, much less stealing them from someone else.

 

[jhnblgr]

So they presented your stamped drawings for numerous projects. First you should contact the building department to notify them of the fraud so they can issue a stop work order. Get your lawyer involved and insurance involved. The homeowners will likely want to take action against them also. Towns should verify plans prior to issuing permits, I had a project where they issued a permit without plans and didn’t know until I called to see how a permit was pulled.

 

[JAE]

In some cases plans/designs for residential aren't required to be sealed/stamped by a licensed engineer to secure a building permit.

If so - the applicable engineering board wouldn't have a dog in the hunt.
But depending on your agreement/contract with the client you may have a case to pursue as others have stated.

 

[jhnblgr]

Why would you bother to submit plans then?

 

[gte447f]

The engineering board probably won't have much to say about this. In my state, they weasel out of this sort of thing by claiming they only have authority to regulate licensed engineers, and no one else. In other words, they can fine engineers and suspend or revoke engineers' licenses, but they can't fine non-engineers or do anything else to them. All the board will do to non-engineers is issue a cease and desist letter. I think it would be up to the district attorney's office to decide whether or not to pursue anything further than that against a non-engineer because it is against the law to practice engineering without a license, and good luck with that unless it is something very high profile.

I imagine you could report it to the general contractors' licensing board if there is one in your state, and they should be able to discipline the GC, hopefully by revoking the license, not that that would actually stop him from building more houses. I'm sure this is a violation of their rules of conduct, or at least I hope it is.

I would certainly contact a lawyer about this. I imagine you would have a civil contract case against the offender.

 

[RVAmeche]

Obviously not a whole building, but for my garage the only thing my county cared about was the PE stamped truss drawing. The rest of my garage plans were not stamped or required to be stamped by them.

 

[phamENG]

Why would you bother to submit plans then?

Because whether it's designed by a registered design professional or just some residential code jockey, the building official will still want to ensure it's being built to code. Anything bigger than a very small backyard shed is required to submit in the jurisdictions where I work most frequently, and even those need a site plan showing they're complying with zoning setbacks.

Very few houses built need any sort of engineering, but they all get plans submitted so they can make sure they're buying the right sized joists, digging the right footings, etc. And then the inspectors know what to inspect for (in a perfect world).

 

[jhnblgr]

This applies to the US

Copyright Protection for Engineering Plans: What You Need to Know - Part One

www.grsm.com

 

[bigmig]

I think in retrospect the reason this happened was because the architect (drafter in this case) builder , developer and real estate agent are one person.....him.
There were no checks and balances, no team. If there was, it would have been harder for him to do this. I still can't identify why; it wasn't money. It wasn't because we did a bad job. He just did it, sort of out of spite. The building dept. in this particular town may as well not exist. Sometimes I think they don't even get of their car during inspections. So they weren't checking him.

Maybe we just made it to easy for him and presented the opportunity on a silver platter, at which point spite and opportunity crossed paths and bad choices were the result.