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ARB Top Ten Complaints

One of the most interesting, and relevant, pieces of information ever published by ARB was on Page 5 of their Annual Report for 2004. This page, titled "The Top 10 Complaints", should be required reading for all architects and we reproduce the list here, not necessarily in order of the number of complaints received.

• Excessive delay in the project being completed.
• The architect raised client’s expectations too high in terms of the budget available, resulting in the original concept having to be scaled down.
• The client was expected to pay for mistakes/errors made by the architect.
• Contract papers were not clear.
• The architect has attempted professional work outside their area of technical competence.
• The architect did not reply to their client’s letters/emails and/or phone calls.
• Failure to deal with post-completion problems, snagging issues, etc.
• Clients given bad advice.
• Conflicts of interest – particularly close working relationships with a contractor or other professional working on the project.
• Work delegated to juniors.

The full version, with examples, is available on the ARB website from this link.

More about ARB

The Architects Registration Board (ARB) was established by an Act of Parliament, the Architects Act, in 1997. ARB is the independent statutory regulator of all UK registered architects.

ARB has a dual mandate to protect the consumer and to safeguard the reputation of architects. To achieve this, they:

• keep an up to date Register of all architects.
• promote good standards both in the education of architects and in professional practice.
• provide consumers with an accessible service in cases of complaint.
• investigate and prosecute unregistered individuals in business or practice who unlawfully call themselves an architect.

Read more about ARB on the ARB website at www.arb.org.uk.

Comment: 26/09/2007

The Annual Report 2006 lists "The five most common complaints...".
The headings are:
1. Terms of engagement.
2. Budget.
3. Delay.
4. Keeping workloads manageable.
5. Dealing with complaints.

Read this section of the report in full here.

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