Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
(OP)
I am a licensed professional engineer in 20+ states. I obtained my licenses at a previous job. My current company is owned by one person who is a construction manager by trade. We are expanding our engineering services into other states but have been stifled in NC and FL by their requirement that registered firms are owned in part by licensed engineers. Can I register as a sole proprietor in those states and continue to sign the drawings under my employer's titleblock? Would I still fall under my employer's liability insurance? Can I claim to be a sole proprietor in this scenario? If I can't, we would pay a sole proprietor to sign our drawings anyway, so why can't that be me?





RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
What did you think would be the response????
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
To your original questions - certainly you can form an LLC or a sole proprietorship. Do the necessary legal things in those states, pay the fees, etc.
The question would be if you are truly being contracted by your company to provide those services as a separate entity. There could be shades of fraud there in that you are posing as an engineering company owned by an engineer but in reality simply acting as an employee of your original company. Seems like getting legal advice here is necessary.
For the insurance, if you do the work as a separate company/firm/LLC then any potential lawsuit could come to your little one man firm.
It might happen this way:
1. Aggrieved client sees his structure have problems/fall down/etc.
2. Aggrieved client sues your employer.
3. Your employer's insurance company sees that the actual contract was with your little one-man firm.
4. Your employer's insurance company sues your little firm.
5. Your little firm has no insurance
6. You lose your house and car and first born child.
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RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
I know an engineer with a COA in FL under his own name. He also owns an engineering firm which does not bare his name. So he is able to sign drawings for Florida that don't necessarily bare his company name. He does this when the client has an approved vendor list which he is not on, but the firm who hired him isn't self performing the construction drawings. This may be because they don't have the proper licenses, the job has aspects outside of the vendor's competency, or they are too busy. Can I get something like this to work for us? Is my only option to sever my employment or not accept the work?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
Paying a sole practitioner $200/sheet to blindly slap a stamp on someone else's drawings is dodgy, even if it is common practice. A construction manager stamping someone else's work which they did not design is equally dodgy. You are supposed to have "supervised" the engineering aspects of the design. I think its reasonable to stamp an out of state engineer's drawings if you give them a serious peer review including completing significant checking calculations. It is not reasonable to slap a stamp on some steel fabricator's shops which were prepared by a detailer just because its convenient.
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
In Ontario we have a certificate of authorization so that a corporation can carry out engineering work, as long as it has a signatory professional engineer on staff willing to take professional responsibility for the work done. But there are no practice inspections and no "span of control" limits- one patsy P.Eng. can take "responsibility" for the work of a department of 100 or more non-engineers or unlicensed engineers. And a sole proprietor, working in their own name, who is also a P.Eng., still needs a C of A to carry out engineering work for the public- even though by definition, all professional engineering they do will of course have been done under their responsible charge as P.Eng...The C of A walks and talks like a secondary license, rendering the P.Eng. license itself utterly meaningless. It's a flawed system, but engineers themselves are the ones responsible for it in the first place- "we" wanted to form corporations, which most of the other licensed professions don't permit. Kudos to those states who are refusing to go that route!
It's a far better system than a general exemption from licensure with the regulation of engineering being de-facto carried out by the insurance industry- at least this system TRIES to reduce the harm in the first place rather than merely compensating the victims after the harm is done.
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
Also, when talking about attitudes...
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
RE: Can I stamp drawings as a sole proprietor for my full time employer?
These states have this law for a reason. If you don't want to follow it, then don't work in those states. End of discussion.
Please remember: we're not all guys!