AIA Contract Documents recently released a new owner-consultant agreement and two accompanying scope of service exhibits for land surveying and geotechnical engineering.
In order for an architect to properly perform its services, the owner typically needs to hire a land surveyor and geotechnical engineer to assess the state of the property. A land surveyor provides vital information about property lines and legal easements, while a geotechnical engineer investigates and analyzes the soil to determine what kind of foundation the architect’s team can design.
AIA Document B101™-2007, Standard Form of Agreement between Owner and Architect, requires the owner to provide land surveying and geotechnical engineering services. Older documents are structured such that an owner would use requests for proposals (“RFPs”) to hire these consultants. This has been done with AIA Document G601™-1994, Request for Proposal—Land Survey, and AIA Document G602™-1994, Request for Proposal—Geotechnical Services.
These documents, however, are limited. G601-1994 and G602-1994 are over twenty years old and cannot account for every owner/consultant scenario that arises on a contemporary project. Furthermore, contracts that are based on a consultant’s proposal often lack essential contracting terms or conflict with the expectations set forth in the RFP.
To address these shortcomings and modernize the nature of owner-consultant agreements, AIA Contract Documents has developed AIA Document C103™-2015, Standard Form of Agreement Between Owner and Consultant without a Predefined Scope of Consultant’s Services. The C103-2015 contains basic business terms that describe the general responsibilities of the parties and set expectations for dispute resolution, termination, and insurance. The C103-2015 also specifies that the consultant owns the copyright to its instruments of service and provides the owner with a license to use those instruments of service for a particular project.
To accompany the new C103-2015 owner/consultant agreement, AIA Contract Documents has released exhibits for the two most common scopes of service, land surveying and geotechnical engineering.
AIA Document C201™-2015, Standard Form of Consultant’s Services: Land Survey includes the following:
- The option to choose between a basic boundary survey that shows property lines and existing structures, an ALTA/ACSM survey that includes relevant title information, or a topographic survey that displays elevations, contours, and utility information.
- Provisions that clarify the surveyor’s role to research items included in the survey.
- Enhanced provisions related to site utilities, including requirements that the surveyor note the sources of information used to identify utilities and the operating authority for each.
AIA Document C202™-2015, Standard Form of Consultant’s Services: Geotechnical Engineering Services includes the following:
- Provisions directing the owner to provide specific project-related information to the geotechnical engineer.
- A detailed list of items that the geotechnical engineer must include in the geotechnical report, including foundation evaluation and recommendations.
- A requirement that the geotechnical engineer be available for consultations during design and construction.
The C201-2015 and C202-2015 function solely as exhibits to the C103-2015 owner/consultant agreement. For other consultant services, like environmental or BIM consulting, the parties may insert a specific scope of service into the agreement or attach a separate exhibit that they create.
The new documents are available in AIA Contract Documents software and on Documents-on-Demand and Documents-on-Demand Plus.
