When the economy caused the “pause button” to be placed on financing for certain projects, it created a domino effect leading to the filing of many mechanic’s liens, judgments and other problems on those projects. Here are a few things you need to know. C. JAYE BERGER While the laws on mechanic’s liens vary from state to state, having a mechanic’s lien on a property usually only becomes problematic if the owner is trying to “do” something with the property, such as refinance, sell or satisfy a construction lender. If the lienor has not started a lawsuit to foreclose on

When economic times are tough, there is usually an increase in the number of consultants used in architectural and engineering firms, as well as in construction companies. The “consultants”referred to in this article are the ones that may have been employees of the firm in better economic times. This is in contrast with other types of consultants who have specialties and work on projects, such as MEP engineers. Labeling these individuals as “consultants” allows the company to continue working with those individuals in a fashion that is less expensive for the company, but may be more expensive for the individual.

When a client hires an architect to design a project, the architectural firm is legally responsible for all of that work, even though they hire various consultants to help them with different aspects of the design. The consultants, in turn, are liable to the architect, not the client. They have “privity of contract” with the architect. The architect also has privity of contract with the client. The consultant has no real legal relationship with the client and generally all communications between the consultant and the client go through the architect. BERGER While the architect may spend many months negotiating a