I hired Kirk Nelson of Design Intervention to design a 2nd floor home addition.
My personal opinion, is I like to:
1) Have a designer that is available to meet on weekends, or after work hours, if my work schedule precludes week days during working hours.
2) Deal with a designer who does not go through the design concept phase. Issue an invoice. Then only after the invoice is paid, demand payment of "additional work" which was anticipated from the very first meeting, and included in the concept design phase.
3) work with a designer who does not submit plans to Building and Planning approval without a) my approval b) without providing me a copy of the plans that he is approving (industry standard is an architect provides client with full set of plans and has the client sign the plans before they are submitted for planning approval. Apparently Design Intervention does not follow industry norms in this respect. They seem to believe that the property owner should not have the opportunity to review the full set of plans or keep a copy of what's being submitted. They also appear to be very resistant to having a qualified architect review plans, since my experience was that when I asked for full set of plans for review by a qualified architect, Kirk Nelson would not provide.)
3) deal with a designer who does not receive rejected Building Department Plan corrections, but claim to me that plans are approved, and demand 100% payment.
4) Be in a contract with a designer who gets my review and approval, before he re-submits plans for approval. Instead of one who leaves 15 (yes 15!) of the original corrections un-corrected, and expects me to pay for the printing and expenses costs.
5) work with a designer who does not then falsely claim a second time that building approval is completed and demand full payment a second time.
6) does not refuse to meet with a qualified architect to review plans before payment is made.
7) does not provide a payment schedule in a contract, and then refuse to complete the project until 90% payment is made.
8) does not claim that a contract payment basis is percentage complete, when the document has a clear set of payment schedule steps and payments, and % complete is not specified on the contract.
9) does submit expenses for printing costs, without the requisit receipts or itemization to validate the expenses are valid.
10) does not have a 3 week schedule for work to be completed, and still, a year later, be holding the project up due to unprofessional demands for payment before work is complete.
11) deal with qualified architects, rather than a person who apparently did an architecture degree, but for what ever reason, never did get qualified as an architect.
When I have consulted with qualified architects about my experience, and the professional conduct of Kirk Nelson and Design Intervention, the reaction has been very interesting to hear.
If you enter into an agreement with a contractor, it is always a good idea to get a construction lawyer to carefully write the performance and payment schedule terms.
My personal opinion is that in the case of Kirk Nelson and Design Intervention, after a year of trying to get a simple addition designed, is it is probably better not to enter into an agreement in the first place. But that's just my personal opinion. At the end of the day it is up to the client to decide what type of contractor they want to work with...
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