before you begin their project - a bad marriage is both parties fault

A MBA would say when they stop being profitable or don't pay.

A JD would say when the liability/risk becomes to much

A psychologist would say when they cause too much stress or they start divorce proceedings

as an architect, you'll have to figure out when the potential for realizing the design stops balancing with your other practice goals.

practically, it depends on the contract you have with them. Give the clients an ultimatum to stop dicking around with revisions & pay their bills, or to walk away. make it their choice to put out or not.

that's why I never want to do custom residential marriage counseling - I'll leave it to the professional shrinks. damn amateur clients are a pain.

good luck!

ha, great answer treekiller. usually any one of those three reasons begets the other two, so i guess the answer will be the same regardless of what type of professional is providing counsel.

yes...well i've thought through all three of those in the last 12 hours.
i think i know my answer.
thanks tk.

adios, such a sweet sounding word, before the lawyers start talking.

assign it to someone else in the office and just make sure the money keeps coming in - afterall, you don't have to publish it

hey jk,
thanks for the input - also an option i was considering.

so the corrollary - beyond rigorous documentation of communication and obtaining their signature on drawing sets at appropriate intervals, are there any other tactics to minimize the liability exposure of a client that isn't 'happy'?

El Jeffe, you are getting me worried. Document, document document - and call your insurance company before they come after you. I have always been impressed how they have helped me nip things in the bud before they even start.

Did you use the standard AIA contract(s)? There's a standard "adios" clause in there.

But the other way is to point out "no money, no workie". (More useful the closer you are to Permit.) If its to that point you can mention, as delicately as possible that;

a. People in your office need to be working on billable projects.

b. You are more than happy to continue to make these changes above and beyond our original contract. Here's a change order form/contract for additional services for straight hourly without a not-to-exceed #.

And as jkaliski mentioned - and ounce of prevention is worth a pound of high-priced lawyers.

el jeffe - we probably could be more helpful to you if you could be a bit more descriptive about the problem.

we've got a b105 agreement.
the termination clause basically says either can terminate if the other party is not in substantial compliance with the terms of the agreement. not sure what that really means in this case.

the more i've thought about it over the weekend, i've identified two aspects that are causing the problem and i'll keep the discussion somewhat generalized.

the first is one that i can really learn from for future work, and that is too heavy a reliance upon email. i have other clients with whom email works fine - not this one because they don't always respond to the direct question via discussion but look at email as a means of exposition and a tool to run off and indulge tangential thoughts. i think more face to face time would help quite a bit.

the other aspect is fundamentally more problematic; i'll call it the moving goal posts. in the absence of virtually any positive feedback, the project seems to have directed by total cost first, then when that was satisfied it became design schedule, then program adherence, and the latest is some general aesthetic concerns. in other words, there is always a pressing problem, to which the process has not adequately addressed, that is brought up when the solution to the previous problem is presented.

to be more specific: i revised a previous 2600sf pricing plan that came in under budget such that i was able to shed about 350sf, which would equate to something like $40,000 i'd expect. i scanned the sketches and emailed with a note to just focus on the overall areas and adjacencies and give me their thoughts. their response was to talk about built-in drawers in two bedrooms and to mention a rather important compositional issue that had never been raised that would fundamentally change the layout.

so perhaps the question to be raised is better phrased as "how have you dealt with a client who moves the goal posts with every plan iteration?"

write really tight job descriptions, keep schematic design as much as possible T &M, get client to actually sign off on approved drawings, to accept changing things in subsequent phases as long as it is a logical evolution of earlier phases.

I have also walked away from clients who constantly moved to goal posts in early phases of projects and finally, and most importantly, with some Clients you really have to say no and stand your ground if it is unreasonable what they ask

thanks john.

-- this is a classic case of the unsophisticated, or inexperienced client -- there's only two sustainable approaches that ever seem to work: either a) you invest an incredible amount of time up front educating the client about the process and your respective obligations, or b) you avoid taking on such clients in the first place.

IMHO, if you decide to accept such a client (after going through the education process) you still have to treat them the same way they'd be treated by their personal lawyer -- i.e. all work is done hourly. If they want to move a wall, that's fine, but it's going to cost 'em. When it's not costing them anything to change their minds or their goals, they have no reason to exercise any discipline whatsoever on their approach to the process.

quizzical,
you would appear to have described them succinctly, unfortunately.

the lesson to vet clients better hasn't been lost on me....
thanks.

quizzical,

Option c) let them learn the hard way. We just had a client sign $70,000 in change orders on his house. He understood (because both we and the contractor explained to him) that this money was due to his indecisiveness.

You can't always know, even with extensive research, which clients will be changeaholics. With the client above, he had no problems with our plans early on. It wasn't until the framing was nearly complete that he started saying "can we move this window, add cabinetry, move a wall?" When we explained the difficulty, he'd say "but I really really want it." It wasn't until the bills came through that he understood the impact of his decisions.

farwest1 ... "let them learn the hard way" ... while I can appreciate the sentiment and know what causes it to surface, that approach really doesn't seem to represent a high-level, professional approach.

despite our many frustrations, clients are not our enemy ... clients are people we are in business to help. if we cannot help, then we should recuse ourselves and help the client find another architect who better meets his/her needs.

jeffe,
i also agree with more seasoned sages 'round here, including yourself.;.)
if i may add to those opinions and reinforce them, i'd say when the clients as such opts for the less productive, more costly and rather difficult direction, it works best the architect takes more of a neutral position and deals with the issues in a calmer and strictly contractual vocabulary.
i think you should stick to your own professional standards because at this point. the project really became 'leave it at the office' type of job. seems like they are continuously fragmenting the goals. dealing with it in that way might just be the right light the clients needed to look at it. ie; "we have to schedule your latest change requests," "this will cost that much."
or, alternatively in educational manner; "this is how we have dealt with similar problem in the past and it really was a good choice," etc...
as soon as they realize that you no longer eager to resolve things and give their projects priority, they will most likely come around. because time is money and that is always an eye opening element for the most difficult clients in construction projects.
and, if they still insist on their un-cooperative approach, then, of course you follow the termination, suspension or abandonment section of the contract, like, adios amigos...my two cents.

I partly agree, quizzical. But when a client ignores the best professional advice of both their architect and contractor, what can you do?

I don't think we behaved unprofessionally, nor at a low-level. And we certainly don't see our client as the enemy. In many ways he's a great client. But he chose not to accept the advice of the design professionals he's hired. Therefore, option c.

I think sometimes clients are going to go for option "c" regardless - often times new clients. I think using a visualization technique like 3d walkthroughs, and to a lesser extent physical models, can alleviate some of those issues, but more often than not its a case of looking at it and not seeing what it means, or truly understanding a system and how it integrates into the whole. Its a learned skill, made much more difficult because its usually the biggest investment that person has yet made in their entire life. Its emotional. Seeing the thing in the flesh can change the client in ways they have no inkling of at the start of the process. I don't think farwest was unprofessional, and its great that both the architect and contractor are both working together to educate the client and making the building the best it can be (the sign of a professional).

However, I do hope that those change orders were signed prior to the work being performed - otherwise its "Sure, we can do that." and then the work is done and the client gets the bill and freaks. Twice - once for the cost, and twice because you didn't tell him the cost beforehand. I've seen the architect above me do that and a contractor on a job do that - its never good.

But if you put it out there that these changes are going to cost X and to only do it because you really really want it X much, they might just go for it. Farwest, I hope you got a little of that $70k for the changes to the contract documents.

And if you expect that your client is going to be a changeaholic, hit 'em with a change order early in the process and when you estimate the time its going to take, be conservative (overestimate) - the old axiom of the dog and the newspaper comes to mind.

update...agreement terminated but they're disputing the last two invoices.
niiiiiiiiice.

who terminated?

my suggestion; their concurrence.

they finally listen to you. well if i may, congratulations!

thanks - this comes in the same week as a really nice notecard from a client who just had a ribbon-cutting ceremony at her new building, expressing her sincere gratitude for my work.
an unusually quick karmic accounting.....