Architect, contract according to HOAI 2013 - refuses to provide service

Zaba12, how do you come to the conclusion "I pay the architect, so I don’t have to do anything"? I have to keep detailed minutes at every meeting with the architect, because otherwise it’s never clear what was discussed and how decisions were made. He doesn’t do it. But as a layman, I cannot tell on the construction site how long the reinforcement steel has to be. If it is then too short, I am certainly not responsible for that. I can at most provide the photos.

Sorry, I judged you too quickly without asking for details. But your reinforcement steel example will not be something your architects can judge, unless he is a structural engineer. To recognize something like that in the shell construction, he would have to be on the construction site daily. But I suppose no dedicated architect does that either.

I see it the same way, however showing up once a month is not supervision of the property in the proper sense. That should also be clear. But what does lack of supervision mean? Where are you actually? The shell builder can only build "rubbish" if he doesn’t exactly know how and what to do, they all know how to execute that!

Always this "I pay the architect so I don’t have to do anything" thinking. What good does it do you if you just sit back and point the finger at the architect? It’s your construction project, not the architect’s project. In the end, you have the problems.

But I see that differently ... why do I hire someone to supervise if I have to be there every day myself and read up on everything anyway, because what good does it do me to hang around the construction site every day if I can’t judge what I see there?

1. I read up myself and go there every day
2. I pay someone who knows what they’re doing

And with 2. I can then check in now and then, but as I said, I have no expertise

Not everyone can or wants to become a construction expert, some just want to live there

When I buy a car, I only read tests, see what it can do, take a test drive, but I leave the building to the OEM.

Well, I see it differently ... why would I hire someone to do the supervision if I then have to stand there myself every day and read up on everything, because what's the point of being on the construction site every day if I can't assess what I see?

1. I read up myself and go there every day
2. I pay someone who knows how to do it

And with 2., I can check in now and then, but as I said, I have no expertise

Not everyone can or wants to train to become a building expert, some just want to live

When I buy a car, I only read tests, see what it can do, take a test drive, but I let the OEM do the building.

You may like to see it that way, and in an ideal world it is certainly like that, but unfortunately you won't be able to buy anything with that mindset if, like the OP, you mess up architecturally.

And honestly... if I had commissioned my architect up to service phase 8, I would still be on the construction site every day, pestering the craftsmen and inspecting the execution. And why? Because as the client, I am personally responsible for my construction site.

Of course, as the client, you are ultimately responsible for everything yourself. Certainly, the optimal solution is to be on the construction site every day. But that is often simply not possible due to job, children, distance, etc. I also think that is exactly why you have an architect. One might differentiate here between a "general contractor architect" provided by the general contractor and an "I freely award all trades" architect. Although it really shouldn't matter. Such an architect already receives a pretty large lump sum of wealth according to HOAI, so you can certainly expect them to be on the construction site at least twice a week, especially for critical appointments.

If I go by what the original poster wrote, I suspect a similarly rational-thinking person like myself, who already judges the whole thing with a certain objectivity. Choosing the architect based on word of mouth was certainly very sensible. Well, one might now complain about the time span, but people usually get better with maturity. We did it exactly the same way, though our time span opinion was only one year. I also think you are now on the right path. You tried to resolve it with the architect, who is unyielding, and now you are going to a lawyer, and ultimately termination could follow. With construction, there is often the problem of time pressure, which leads you to stick with the chosen people and companies, even if they only botch things, because you fear that by the time a new person has gotten up to speed, weeks or even months will have passed.

sichtbeton82, of course I am not particularly interested in changing the architect, but I don't see any real alternative here. If his demands are justified, that would at least be a … surprise. But now I am waiting to see what the lawyer says. Since the resumption of construction work (March 26), the architect has been on site only once, on April 14 for 1 hour. Appointments that he himself scheduled were simply not attended by him. The contractor was left alone and waited.

I don't want to complain about old people, but if you take a 72-year-old architect who is not exactly a grandpa or best great-grandchild, you can't expect anything else.