What does the contract say about who keeps the deposit? I’m not surprised they dropped you - with the amount of work they are likely juggling (and turning away because they are very busy), I can see not proceeding with a client who has tuned adversarial. What you see as you ’expressing your frustrations’, they may see as ’client with unreasonable expectations/more trouble than they’re worth’.

All in all, read the contract - that will answer your question of ’will you get the money back’. Unlikely, as they put in the work, whether you like that work ot not.

@makmartell the contract does not say much. In general form my experience with other fields if the services are not of good quality the customer is entitled to some if not all the money back. The frustration is expected as the builders are not experiencing any lack of customers and attention to everyone is not what they are guilty of

I think you dogs get a bullet if they drop you. Anyone who can’t meet their own timelines, isn’t willing to communicate and work with you, at the start of the project will be a disaster at the end! Ask for the money back but expect them to want to keep some as they have done some work. Clarify who owns the designs too.

Jump on that termination please if they refund your money. You aren't right for each other.

@Joseph Corlett, LLC @WestCoast Hopeful I am afraid they do not want to give us any money back . The designs are not complete so they are useless at the moment .

Usually the agreement is not "Do the plans and I will pay you if I like them", there is probably something in the agreement that there is a fee for time spent on plan development and the refund would not be complete, you will have to see what the agreement says.

The reason for this is that people would get plans from three different firms and then pick the one they like and not want to pay the two others.

If you think this is unfair, think of a typical corporate environment: say you are working on a proposal for several months , and the proposal you submit is not the proposal chosen. Does your firm make you return your salary to them? Probably not.

@palimpsestm there is no plan, just a draft of a very poor floor plan that is useless. There should be a way to protect the consumer like in any other industry. Say I hire the contractor to fix my toilet and pay a deposit. If the contractor shows up once and does not fix anything I have a right to ask for the deposit back. Another example, I paid for the hotel stay upfront and when I came I see the room is flooded and I cannot stay in that room, do I deserve the money back?

I think it’s very reasonable for you to ask for some back but not all. They didn’t do half the work so why would they get half the pay? Pay them for their time but that’s all

I am just saying the contract is probably not all or nothing, I doubt you can expect 100% refund, that's all. I don't think hotel room flooded by a toilet is a great analogy.

@palimpsest the contract is very sketchy, but it does seem the builder expects to keep the money . I work in a corporate world and the analogy would be a government contract where we know we do not have to try hard, just create an illusion of some activity as the money will be paid anyways ....sometimes just like our builder we present noting of any quality as the money has been already transferred and spent

My understanding is that your market is red hot and design / build firms are walking away from jobs because they know they can get a better paying one the next day. It's a sad reality but if they are focused on the build, they will cheat the design to get to the build portion, get that done ASAP and move to the next one.

You may want to contract invididually for design and build (and realize sometimes that's easier said than done too - esp in that market) but at least you pay the archtect for her / his time and they won't rush through since that's where they put the profit.

I'm sorry you're had a poor experience.

Consider the initial deposit for design consultation or architectural services similar to an attorney's retainer. You are not purchasing a finished product at that point unless the contract clearly states otherwise. Generally most pros have an out clause for either side during this period.

Its rare to meet timing milestones in the ongoing COVID environment. Most offices have had personnel out over the past few months, especially with the Omicron surge. My finish carpenters were down 20%+ of their crews for much of January. Permit processing, inspections, bids all taking longer. Materials deliveries are a comedy/tragedy. Despite what you may have heard from DC, ports in January were backed up well beyond the issues in November & December.

There’s a different between a deposit and paying 50% and then not getting 50% of the work done.

Pay them for the work they did, if any, and be happy it's over.

We had a similar experience (and later learned from friends that they had too). We asked our designer to design in certain things and it was as if he hadn’t read/paid attention to anything we said but wanted to charge us for time spent developing a plan nothing like what we requested. We went our separate ways after a few weeks, but were out $2k and then had to hire another firm that e worked well with.

They dodged a bullet. And you think you did. Separation should be its own reward. At $150+ an hour, they probably spent way more time than you think.

I can only say what my particular design process is, but all I can tell you is the process is not incremental or linear. It's not like a tile setter coming onto a site starting with 0 tiles installed and when 500 of 1000 are set, the job is 50% done.

I could be wrong with a lot of "custom" design builds using boiler plate computer plans and essentially cutting and pasting but when I design something 50% does not mean I have 50% of the construction documents drawn. I could easily spend 75% of my time on schematic and rough drawings and then quickly produce all the drawings in the last 25% of time I spend. Could even be less.

Conversely if a plan is simple but there are lots of picky details, the plan could take no time at all and detail drawings could take a Lot of time. But in any case I don't think 50% of the design process is usually coincident with 50% done with documentation. It very well could be a poor draft at this point, because it may not be at the point of what it communicates to you but what it communicates to them.

@Karen we paid 9K already. It is hard to estimate how much time they spent, the architect, one drawing and two lousy revisions - 10 hours tops. I would agree with 2K , but 9K is too much

@Verbo, I still do not understand why I have to pay by hour and not for the product. There is no product as the builder wants to terminate BEFORE finishing the design and he wants to keep my 50% designer fees. I do not have even 50% of plans, I have 5% at most

Because that is what you agreed to. You do not get to revise things in your favor after you sign a proposal. Thats childish take backs crossed fingers mentality. And that mentality is why they want to end the relationship, and you will have a very tough time finding anyone who will want to take you on as a client. Not without a beginning design retainer that is at least quadruple of your figure. 9K is peanuts for fees for a project of that scope. Beginning money. For schematics. Beginning concepts. Not ”construction documents”. You are clearly not understanding what schematics are, and that they delivered what they promised. Even if you didn’t like them.

@Vinnya DeLuca - Please ignore most, or all, of this advice. Please see an attorney in your area. Details become important, did they ask you to release them from the agreement or did they notify you they would not work with you?

They asked to terminate the contract, a.k.a. they are breaching the contract. Your remedy in this breach is likely the same as your remedy in any breach, you get put in the same position you would be in if they didn't breach.

Because of the doctrine of unjust enrichment, they are allowed to get compensated for any benefit you received. They are generally not allowed to be compensated for work they did which didn't produce a benefit for you when they breach.

So the firm may be able to keep some of the deposit so long as they provided some benefit. You should be reasonable about benefits, if they helped refine your vision and changed the way you will proceed in the future, that is a benefit and they should be compensated for that, however, the compensation needs to be commiserate with the benefit provided.

Good luck.

ETA: please note, if the client is the breaching party then it becomes a completely different story.

ETA2: Just for further clarification. Several posters have noted that the firm may have put a significant amount of work into this phase and that the work they have done may not be reflected in the deliverables. None of that matters... you are not asking to be released from the contract, they are asking to be released from the contract, or possibly notifying you they are breaching the contract.

When you notify a company that you will not continue the relationship they typically have a right to compensation for the work they did. As they could have been spending that time working with someone else and receiving compensation from them. However, if they are the party that notifies that they will not continue to relationship, they typically have no right to compensation for the work they did. This is for the exact same reason... You could have spent that time working with someone else and paying them compensation. Therefore, the only collectible amounts are things the next designer doesn't have to do as this company has already done it.

For example, suppose there are engineering reports required and this firm paid for those reports, that would be something the next firm could reasonably use and this firm should be compensated for it.

@Vinnya DeLuca - Please be aware, if they offer to give you some money back and you accept, then that is a settlement for the breach and limits you to that amount.

Hi, Vinnya,

As I understand it, the agreement was to produce schematic plans. Schematic plans are usually very preliminary or "concept" plans. The investment to produce them is typically a fraction of the cost to produce fully-detailed construction drawings. It's probably not a good economic choice to turn the lawyers loose.

Not every designer, architect, builder or remodeler is right for every client. You are clearly dissatisfied with their design services and they're willing to stop short of full completion of the agreed scope of services. I think it's reasonable to expect the portion of their fee associated with the uncompleted scope of work to be refunded.