Legalese

摘要

I often receive calls via the RIBA Legal Helpline from architects seeking help with securing payment from recalcitrant clients. Their problems include clients withholding or attaching extraneous conditions to payment, disputes over what should be included in the construction cost for calculating a percentage fee, and the relatively new phenomenon of clients wanting fees repaid when contractors' tenders come in below budget. It is also timelessly common for clients to raise phantom counterclaims against architects, particularly in the present climate where the debtor client might not have the money to make the payments it owes, and thinks that a speculative claim may just get home.