Who owns the digital drawings?

[jayc89]

It’s likely we’ll be parting ways with our architectural technician soon.

 

A couple of other Architects we’ve spoke with have said if they can get access to our existing survey drawings, they would waive their own survey fees (I have clearly confirmed that any measurement mistakes would still be their responsibility)

 

But my question is, given our existing technician is fully paid up, who actually owns the digital copy of our survey etc?

[JohnMo]

You will need to look at your contract.

 

But you have paid for a service to be completed, the drawings etc were completed at your request using a paid for service, so they should belong to you.

 

Ask him/her for the the drawings in the native formats.

Edited April 6, 2022 by JohnMo
Made gender neutral

[TonyT]

You paid for the drawing and it would be reasonable that you would use it to obtain any information relating to your build.

 

I wouldn’t worry about this, plenty to worry about later when you are building😀

[CharlieKLP]

They were produced with the intention that you would use them going forward, so it’s implied that even if the technician has the copyright, you have the right to use them on that site.

 

However it’s down to the new architect to check they can use the drawings and copyright is cleared. 
 

If you want a digital copy, then it’s down to the technician if they want to give you it or not. You don’t own the digital drawings by rights, and they have more info in them than you require.

 

Usually a PDF is fine as long as it can be imported to CAD. If they are nice they will give a purged version in CAD.