[Year]

LIABILITY
ASSIGNMENT 2
PROFESSIONAL PRATICE

Ria Gurbani
16031
Liability
 The quality or state of being legally obligated or accountable, legal responsibility to
another or to society.
 Enforceable by Civil remedy or Criminal punishment.
Professional Liability -
A type of liability coverage designed to protect traditional professionals (e.g., accountants,
attorneys) and quasi-professionals (e.g., real estate brokers, consultants) against liability
incurred as a result of errors and omissions in performing their professional services.
Civil Liability-
As used in the term “civil liability,” the word liability means responsibility for the harm
alleged by the plaintiff and the damages suffered. A person found liable in a civil action,
upon a verdict in favor of the plaintiff, must pay whatever monetary damages the jury (or
sometimes the judge) awards to the plaintiff.
Criminal Liability-
Crime is a wrong committed against the society and remedy is punishment.Liability in a
crime is measured by the intention of the wrongdoer

Liability of Architect (w.r.t Breach of Contract duty :)

The laws of the land mandate that the professionals should provide services to the
consumers in a required manner exercising duty of care and while doing so they should not
commit any negligent act. In order to protect the interest of the consumers against the
breach of duty, the deficient services have been defined by the statute and legal actions
have been initiated on the erring professional.
The client should be informed about the liability of the Architect towards the project
in question. Some important points are;-
a) The architect is not liable for consequential damages to the work. He is only liable
upto 3 years from the date of completion of the relavant part of the work
b) An Architect does not guarantee the work of any Contractor.
c) The Architect has no liability whatsoever for any part of the work not designed by
him or which has not been constructed under his supervision
d) The Architect has no liability whatsoever for any damage resulting from any act of
contractor or supplier which is not in accordance with the contract documents or the
Architects instructions.
e) The Architect has no liability whatsoever for any violation of legal provisions or rights
of third parties unless these provisions or rights have been specifically brought to the
notice of the Architect by the client

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An architect is not liable for any liability, if the damage to the building has occasioned
in the following circumstances:
 Use of building for the purposes other than for which it has been designed.
 Any changes/ modifications to the building carried out by the owner(s)/occupant(s)
without the consent or approval of the architect who designed and/ or supervised the
construction of the building.
 Any changes/alterations/modifications carried out by consulting another architect
without the knowledge and consent of erstwhile architect or without obtaining No
Objection Certificate from him.
 Illegal/unauthorised changes/alteration/ renovations / modifications carried out by the
owner(s)/occupant(s).
 Any compromise with the safety norms by the owner(s)/ occupant(s).
 Distress due to leakage from terrace, toilets, water logging within the vicinity of the
building and that would affect the strength/stability of the structure or general well-
being.
 Lack of periodical maintenance or inadequate maintenance by the
owner(s)/occupant(s).
 Damages caused due to any reasons arising out of `specialised consultants' deficient
services with regard to design and supervision of the work entrusted to them, who were
appointed/ engaged in consultation with the Client.
 Damages caused to the building for the reasons beyond the control of the architect .

Nature of Liability:
An architect is liable for the negligent act which he committed in the performance of his
duties. The action against an architect can be initiated by the Client on satisfying the following
conditions:
a) There must exist a duty to take care, which is owed by an architect to his client.
b) There must be failure on the part of an architect to attain that standard of care prescribed
by law, thereby committed breach of such duty;
c) The client must have suffered damage due to such breach of duty.

Contract
Contract is a voluntary arrangement between two or more parties that is enforceable by law
as a binding legal agreement.
1. Contract is a branch of the law of obligations in jurisdictions of the civil law tradition. Note
: Indian stamp act of 1899
2. Contract shall be executed and signed on a stamp paper of appropriate value
3. In case of dispute unstamped contract papers cannot be admitted before an arbitrator or
a court of law
4. Contract should follow INDIAN CONTRACT ACT 1872 to regulate the agreements or
undertakings in business CONTRACT

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5. Contract document consists the following papers:
1. Copy of public TENDER notice
2. Copy of work order
3. Letter of offer by contractor - Articles of agreement - General conditions of contract
– Appendix
4. Specifications of work & material
5. Bill of quantities (Contract bill)
6. Contract drawings
Special Conditions for the Building Contract
1. Liquidated damages-
If, the contractor fails to complete the works in the completion period as provided for in the
contract, the owner shall become entitled to liquidated damages of an agreed amount per
day of delay or part thereof until the works are completed, which money may be deducted
by the owner from progress payments as they fall due and to the extent that such liquidated
damages are unpaid, the contract price shall be reduced, and, to the extent that such
damages exceed the balance of the contract sum payable, they shall be a debt recoverable by
the owner against the contractor.
2. Breach of contract-
 It is a legal cause of action in which a binding agreement or bargained-for exchange is
not honoured by one or more of the parties to the contract by non-performance or
interference with the other party's performance.
 Where part or all of the contract price is to be provided with payments being based
on the value of the work the subject of the contractor’s progress claim, then the
Owner is not in breach if a lesser sum is paid to the contractor reflecting the extent
that the lending authority’s reasonable valuation of the works is less than the amount
of the progress claim
3. Negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate and or ethical ruled care expected to be
exercised amongst specified circumstance. The area of tort law known as Negligence involves
harm caused by failing to act as a form of carelessness possibly with extenuating
circumstances. The core concept of negligence is that people should exercise reasonable care
in their actions, by taking account of the potential harm that they might foreseeably cause to
other people or property.

Professional indemnity insurance

Professionals like architects, engineers, doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, and
medical practitioners, and services such as medical establishments need to protect their
business interests against legal claims for error, omissions, professional neglect for both the
principles and their employees.
Key exclusion under the policy
 Negligent act or omission
 Civil liability
 Irrecoverable Loss
 Defence costs Unintentional defamation

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  Bodily injury or property damage
Loss of third-party document or data
 Legal expenses
 Breach of confidentiality
The following Add-On Covers are available in an Architects’ Professional
Indemnity Insurance Policy:
 Cover for Restoration of Lost Documents
 Advancement of Emergency Costs
 Cover for Dishonesty of Employees or Covers which pay for Mitigation
Measures for Errors Committed
 Cover for Unintentional Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights
 Cover for Copyright Infringement and Plagiarism
 Retroactive Date Cover for Projects which commenced before the Beginning
of the Policy
Premium Amount
There are various factors which determine the premium amount under this insurance. it
includes limits or deductible you choose, your firm size, size of the project and claim history.
the major considerations while underwriting an architects’ professional
indemnity policy are as follows:
 turnover of the firm (total fees)
 limit of indemnity required
 number of employees
 prior claims experience

Example of Professional Liability In architecture

1. Bhanushali Building Collapses
The petition filed by local resident
Sanjay Gurav seeks registration of a
first information report against
Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation (BMC) officials
concerned as well as the architect
who had prepared the application
seeking permission to repair the
building and the owner of the
building.

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 2 .Mahad Building Collapses
A five-storied building collapsed in Mahad town of
Raigad district, some 170km from Mumbai,
According to FIR, the builder along with architect and
the RCC consultant were responsible for
constructing the building using inferior material and
without proper attention

3. Gujarat high court had recently

considered the following question in a
petition filed by an architect to quash
criminal proceedings against him u/s
482 of code of criminal procedure.if
any building collapses, after 19 years of
its construction and that too after
withstanding worst earthquake of
2001, can it be said that it was
constructed with substandard material

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