Affidavit to certify project
Affidavit to certify project
(OP)
We received a letter from a building official recently that wanted each stamping engineer for every discipline on a project to sign and have notarized this affidavit. The main body of the letter is below, which is from the same letter that every discipline engineer and architect received.
I didn't sign the way it is written below of course. The first thing that bothers me is that I had to fight with my own company's management (as usual, they often come to me with whatever they think will make the client happy at that very moment and disregard the future or our company and my license) to get the wording to what I thought was acceptable. On this project, we have a few site visits as we normally do and are not the full time special inspectors and couldn't possibly certify everything was installed in accordance with Code. The second thing that bothers me is why are the engineers obligated to sign this affidavit for the building official anyway?
Almost all of the work I do is for the Federal Government and they don't use this. So are local jurisdictions now requiring such letters at the end of all projects as standard practice?
1) The Undersigned hereby certifies that all plans and specifications have been designed in accordance with the 2012 International Building Code, 2012 International Fire Code and the 2012 Life Safety Code.
2) The Undersigned further certifies that the plans conform to the laws as to egress, type of construction, and general arrangement, and the plans conform to the technical codes as to strength, stresses, strains, loads, and stability.
3) The Undersigned agrees to maintain inspection reports by the Engineer as the inspections are performed. The Undersigned further agrees to certify, at the completion of the project, that all means of egress, structural, firestopping and fire rated assemblies have been erected or installed in accordance with the requirements of the applicable technical codes.
I didn't sign the way it is written below of course. The first thing that bothers me is that I had to fight with my own company's management (as usual, they often come to me with whatever they think will make the client happy at that very moment and disregard the future or our company and my license) to get the wording to what I thought was acceptable. On this project, we have a few site visits as we normally do and are not the full time special inspectors and couldn't possibly certify everything was installed in accordance with Code. The second thing that bothers me is why are the engineers obligated to sign this affidavit for the building official anyway?
Almost all of the work I do is for the Federal Government and they don't use this. So are local jurisdictions now requiring such letters at the end of all projects as standard practice?
1) The Undersigned hereby certifies that all plans and specifications have been designed in accordance with the 2012 International Building Code, 2012 International Fire Code and the 2012 Life Safety Code.
2) The Undersigned further certifies that the plans conform to the laws as to egress, type of construction, and general arrangement, and the plans conform to the technical codes as to strength, stresses, strains, loads, and stability.
3) The Undersigned agrees to maintain inspection reports by the Engineer as the inspections are performed. The Undersigned further agrees to certify, at the completion of the project, that all means of egress, structural, firestopping and fire rated assemblies have been erected or installed in accordance with the requirements of the applicable technical codes.





RE: Affidavit to certify project
RE: Affidavit to certify project
RE: Affidavit to certify project
I my jurisdiction we sign an affidavit stating that we have made periodic site visits and to the best of our knowledge the construction is in conformance to the plans and specifications.
RE: Affidavit to certify project
RE: Affidavit to certify project
Rule 180-6-.09. Certification
(1)The term "Certification" as used in Rule 180-6-.09(2) and (3) and
relating to professional engineering or land surveying services, as
defined in O.C.G.A. 43-15-2(6) and (11), shall mean a signed statement
based upon facts and knowledge known to the registrant and is not a
guarantee or warranty, either expressed or implied.
(2)When an engineer or land surveyor is presented with a certificate to be
signed or sealed, he or she should carefully evaluate that certification
to determine if the certification:
(a)relates to matters which are within the technical competence of
the engineer or land surveyor;
(b)involves matters which are within the scope of services actually
provided by the engineer or land surveyor or;
(c)relates to matters which were prepared under the supervision,
direction and control of the engineer or land surveyor.
(3)Engineers or land surveyors who sign or seal certification not meeting
criteria in subsection (2) are subject to discipline pursuant to O.C.G.A.
43-15-19(a)(5).
The Building Official is doing this for CYA purposes so that they can't be blamed for their potentially crappy plan review. As hokie66 noted, it is mostly a restatement of what your signature/seal already does so it is redundant; however, redundancy for our liability purposes is NOT GOOD! Does the Building Official not understand that he has sovereign immunity? (although he's probably doing it for job protection, not to protect the building department!)
Bad practice. See if you can get the locals together and get a meeting with him to stop this crap. You're licensed for a reason. The reason is to protect the health, safety and welfare of the public, not the building official.
RE: Affidavit to certify project
The city officials think they are somehow improving the quality of the building product by doing this - which they aren't. They also think that by requiring these "certifications" they are somehow ensuring that the engineers will be more responsible, more careful, or be more liable should anything go wrong with the building, which isn't the case.
It also is a reflection of the disease endemic within any government organization that compels these people to decree and demand things without any true factual justification.
A couple of things I'd think about with this:
1. These statements go beyond your state's engineering practice act I'm sure.
2. The statements appear to me to be asking you to certify things in which you probably don't have full knowledge of anyway.
3. The statements might possibly void your liability insurance...check with your insurance agent - they are insuring you based on engineers standard of care, not a certification that "all" things are perfect. If you then go beyond the standard of care and certify that your work is perfect the insurer could potentially walk away from defending you.
4. The statements add nothing to the quality of the building beyond what your signature and seal on the original plans do.
Check out Eng-Tips Forum's Policies here:
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Affidavit to certify project
Thanks for finding that. It helps when I can point to the law when these kinds of things come up. I agree about him trying to cover his own job.
JAE,
I brought up the insurance as well. Bringing up my company getting in trouble in such situations actually helps me as management is less concerned about my license but I do get their attention when I mention the company getting sued.
We all ended up in agreement at the end with the changes that the letter needed, I just get disgusted when these sorts of things come up and I usually end up having to be confrontational due to some others ignorance.
RE: Affidavit to certify project
RE: Affidavit to certify project
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: Affidavit to certify project
I did not and would not do that. My direct boss used to be a practicing structural engineer and he gets it. The problem is the project managers (more like client manager paper pushers and are of disciplines other than structural). I won't even mention some of the other things they have brought to me expecting me to go along with it.
RE: Affidavit to certify project
We tell them that we are also trying to help them maintain access to our insurance and don't want to jeopardize that access for them.
In fact, many times we pass these requests to our agent and ask him to visit with those demanding them. It certainly helps convince others.
Check out Eng-Tips Forum's Policies here:
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: Affidavit to certify project
'I hereby certify that any plans, specifications and drawings with my seal and signature affixed to them are complete and conform to the applicable codes and standards, to the best of my knowledge.'
RE: Affidavit to certify project
TenPenny....don't re-certify what your signature and seal already do. Supplementary "certification" of any kind is inappropriate.
RE: Affidavit to certify project
https://www.pinellascounty.org/build/PDF/archeng.p...
http://www.villageofbrookville.com/uploads/3/4/0/0...
https://www.charlottecountyfl.gov/services/buildin...
http://www.colliergov.net/home/showdocument?id=410...
http://www.beverlyma.gov/docs/dm/Final-Affidavit-2...
https://www.amherstma.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View...
RE: Affidavit to certify project
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: Affidavit to certify project
RE: Affidavit to certify project
Wow, some of those are pretty bad. I fight local jurisdictions on these all the time. The only time I ever really relent if for a state form that has language that matches what I have on my forms. I really dislike paper pushers, unfortunately, I run into them quite often.
My other favorite is when I am asked to sign a final affidavit when that wasn't part of the contract. That one always gets interesting. Lost a few clients over refusal to say that I have been present onsite when I wasn't and that was not part of my scope of work.
RE: Affidavit to certify project
1. The PE is certifying that the design of the project is up to code/standards
2. The PE is performing the Construction Quality Assurance/Quality Control (QA/QC) for the project.
One PE may or may not be doing both items that is required by the affidavit. The QA/QC is an important aspect for any type of work because the regulator cannot be onsite 24/7 and needs some mechanism to verify the work was performed properly. As a regulator who deals with RCRA facilities (hazardous waste treatment storage and disposal facilities - e.g., landfills) an engineer needs to stamp the drawings & calculations for the design, prepare a QA/QC plan and certify the QC plan including all of the testing results. The purpose is to verify that the project was designed and constructed properly, and if there were any failures/violations found during constructed, they were properly addressed.
If your contract is not to perform both functions of the affidavit, then this needs to be resolved before the form is signed/sealed.
RE: Affidavit to certify project
I will consult our state board and let you know what I find out if they respond.
RE: Affidavit to certify project
RE: Affidavit to certify project
The Pinellas County document appears to be used when an Architect and/or Engineer performs inspections in lieu of municipal inspectors. See http://www.pinellascounty.org/build/forms.htm#form...
RE: Affidavit to certify project
In the process, it also forces the owner to sign the first Schedule, acknowledging the requirement of field review, which is nice.
They were written by the code officials, architectural associations and engineer associations, so they tie in with all the standards of practice.
http://www.bccodes.ca/letters-of-assurance.aspx?vi...
RE: Affidavit to certify project
http://www.ribcc.ri.gov/documents/forms/128%20Proj...