A formal written agreement setting out things like services, cost, time, and insurances.
There is a PDF in your inbox called something like CAA2019 and it runs to about fifteen pages. You are going to skim it, sign the last page and hope. Almost everyone does. It is usually the largest sum of money a person has ever put a signature to, and it arrives looking like homework.
It is the Australian Institute of Architects' standard Client Architect Agreement, and being handed it is a good sign rather than a bad one. It is the industry's own instrument, not something your architect drafted to suit themselves, and a practice using it has chosen to be measured against a document it did not write.
But it is a standard form with defaults, and the defaults are not all neutral. Four parts deserve your full attention before you sign — Schedule A, the copyright clause, the publication clause and termination. Fifteen minutes on those four is the best-value reading you will do on the entire project.
The standard agreement lets me walk away on notice without a reason. It gives you no matching right. Read clause K.
The Institute's CAA2019 covers project details, architectural services, cost and time, fees, specialist consultants, intellectual property, insurances and liabilities, obligations on both sides, dispute resolution and termination. A registered architect must carry professional indemnity and public liability insurance for the duration.
Being protected rather than exposed. Most people have never signed anything with this much money attached, and the instinct is to skim it. Having it explained clause by clause converts a moment of anxiety into evidence of professionalism.
A one-page quote, or an email chain, or nothing. No agreed scope means no basis for a conversation about extra work, so either the architect absorbs it or the client is surprised by it. When something goes wrong there is no mechanism, only a falling-out.
I use the Institute's CAA2019 rather than something I have written myself. That is deliberate — it is the industry's own agreement, drafted to be fair from both sides, and you can read it independently of me. I will take you through it clause by clause rather than ask you to sign a document you have skimmed. If there is a gap between signing and starting, I check in every couple of months. You will never have to chase me for a status update.
At minimum: who the parties are, the site and the project, the scope of services set out item by item, the fee and how it is calculated, who engages and pays each consultant, the insurances the architect carries and for how much, and what happens if there is a dispute. In Queensland a registered architect must hold professional indemnity and public liability cover. The agreement leaves the amounts blank to be filled in, so read what is actually written there. Check the late-payment interest rate too. Left blank, the standard form applies 15 per cent a year.
Read Schedule A, which is the tick-box scope. Every line is marked Included, Excluded or Additional, and the agreement states that where no box has been marked, or where there is ambiguity, that item is excluded. Blank means you are not getting it. Look particularly at the things people assume are automatic — measuring the existing house, 3D illustrations, planning negotiation, tender documentation, site visits during construction, and the defects period afterwards. If something matters to you and is not ticked, ask for it, and expect the fee to reflect it.
The architect, under this agreement. You receive a licence to use the design for that project on that site, and it is non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable. You cannot build it on a different block, hand it to someone else or assign it without written consent. The licence can be revoked while an invoice is overdue, and it becomes irrevocable once the services are complete and everything is paid. None of this is unusual or hostile. It does mean that taking the plans elsewhere is not the simple move people assume it is.
Under the standard agreement, yes. The client agrees to allow reasonable access to photograph or record the project, and to allow the architect to publicise it including for marketing and awards, unless the parties agree otherwise. Those last four words are the ones to use. If you would rather your house did not appear on Instagram or in an awards entry, say so before you sign and have it written into the special conditions, which take precedence over every other clause. Most architects will negotiate this. Very few will offer.
There is a sequence. Either party can give notice of a dispute and require a meeting within five business days. If that fails, either can propose mediation with an accredited mediator, and neither side can be made to pay more than half the cost of it. Only once mediation has failed can it go to court. On termination, read clause K closely. The architect may end the agreement without giving a reason on thirty business days' notice, while your right to terminate is limited to insolvency or a material breach. Either way, you pay for services completed.
If you would rather start small, the First Sketch Session is two hours at your place. You keep the sketches, and there is no obligation afterwards.