I, as a consumer, was and expected to be charged upfront for any plans I touched and got to keep. People always pay architects for the paper drawings even if they later do not move forward.

I'm a consumer not a pro

I was charged for plans by my designer. I would think any plans that required hours of work should be charged for as opposed to scribblings on the back of a napkin. In my contract the plans were divided into design plans (which I believe yours would qualify as) and the schematic plans (i.e. those which were the very detailed plans submitted to the permit office). I had the option of paying for the two plans separately.

In my contract I would also have been charged for a third redesign.

Wouldn't much of the quote depend on finishes that are at the discretion of the client? In my remodel, the GC is supplying labor and construction materials and I am supplying all the optional types of materials like tiles, flooring, fixtures etc.

Why is the prospective homeowner being allowed to keep plans that aren't paid for?

"Why is the prospective homeowner being allowed to keep plans that aren't paid for?"

My thought exactly.

Don’t give away your work. Ever. You charge for an initial visit, and you charge at least 50% design development for the anticipated scope of work before you ever leave from that visit. Then, when you have the design worked out, and are ready to give them the documents, you charge the other half of the design fee, when you set the appointment for the presentation. Factor in 2 tweaks to the design, and anything else incurs additional fees.

The Pro to Pro Houzz section has about a half dozen of the same issues being posted about currently.

Denise, I am not a design pro, though I am a client. I expect to pay for any design work. In fact, I expect to pay for anything after an initial 'getting to know you' kind of meeting. You are selling expertise and experience. Since you cannot protect those assets once they are imparted to the client you have to be paid in advance for them. There are some people who do not understand design well enough to respect its value. And there are some people who are always looking for a free lunch. Asking for a design fee up front will ensure that you are being paid properly and not wasting your time with people who in the end will be wasting your time.

Actually if you have proof that they are your designs (you emailed the designs to the client for example) and she used them verbatim and then it was posted on another company's website, that's called COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT. In that case you can get damages.

You might want to start with a letter to the customer and contractor to let them know they are in copyright infringement. You might want to let the client know you expect to be paid a design fee for her use of YOUR design.

because if I let a client even just review the plans in front of me they can easily memorize the details and general layout then move on.

You as a visual person can probably "memorize" details. I find that most people are not generally visual in their memory and cannot remember the details enough that they'd be able to reproduce them.

I'm not a designer but a full time artist. If I do a commission, I ask for 25% down to create an idea for them. That usually means my photographing a still life setup to give them an idea. Once they approve the setup, I ask for another 25% down. Once I finish the drawing, I'll send them a very low resolution jpg for their approval and only after the money is officially in my account will I ship out the drawing to the client.

Figure out something that works for you. Your asset is not only your creative ideas but your time. You need to be paid for your time.

I am not a pro, I am talking from the client perspective. I had initial visits with 3 places. Those initial visits were free. If any of them would have wanted to charge me for the initial visit, which is what Sophie Wheeler suggested, I wouldn't have made the initial visit. With those initial visits, we talked about the kind of look and goals I had for the kitchen, and much of the visit was to see if we gelled. From there I picked the one I wanted to go with. He charged me a fee for his drawings, which I was fine with, since he was a clear communicator about the amount of time that would be needed to come to my house, measure, and then draw up plans. If after he'd done that, and I paid him, then walked away, he'd at least have been paid for his time.

M Miller - I agree that charging for the initial visit would have been a non-starter to me as well. I think both parties would be determining whether the fit was right at that stage.

There was a walk through of my unit and a discussion of what I wanted to do and what I liked from a design perspective and I also provided a tentative budget in terms of seeing whether it was at all feasible (ha ha let's just say - three times as much and twice as long or vice versa LOL). Obviously if I had put out a ridiculously low figure, the designer would probably have not pursued it. However there wasn't anything of value exchanged because meeting with PROSPECTIVE clients is part of the cost of doing business.

In this case, the OP provided much more than an initial meeting with a client and it appears the OP went back and provided not just ONE specific design plan but THREE. It is that which should have been paid for by the client.

Obviously there is also a gray area in between in which a tentative sketch is presented but that shouldn't entail hours of work and three revisions. My designer didn't measure until we had signed the contract so actually providing plans that were anything other than vague plans wouldn't have been possible at that point anyway.

Not quite the same thing, but when I had a house designer draw up house plans, we signed a contract specifying deliverables and payment schedule. We had initial meetings (free) and once we chose to proceed with the designer, we paid for each deliverable along the way. I would suggest you draw up a similar contract specifying costs to cover these designs as the client goes. If your design-build business plan allows, you could write the contract such that the costs of the design are essentially credited towards the build portion if / when the client chooses to proceed.

Denise:

You have a potential client qualification problem more than a contractural one. You need more probing questions and to develop your sense of sniffing out thieves.

Time is Money for a business.

Time all events & expenses

time to go to house

time to design

time to meet

etc.

Decide how much your time is worth per hour. Charge accordingly.

Take a travel, consultation service fee for travel time, gas, consulting time, etc beforehand. Credit card over phone or check by mail. If they're serious about your services, they'll value your time & pay accordingly.

Estimates take time to calculate.

If they don't hire you, you at least got paid for your valuable time.

If they do hire you, you have already established respect as a professional who gets paid for your service hours of service or per project.

Keep your prices within reason within the going rate locally.

If starting out & slower in process, then charge per job. Make more per hour by getting faster & when you're more in high demand.

Have a clear contract.

Never give out ideas, designs, etc unless $ is paid for all hours, expenses, and intellectual property value is covered 1st.

Know your Intellectual property value & rights & hours to complete.

Best of successes;)

If the design as posted on the contractor's website is an actual copy of your floorplan or renderings, you have a claim under copyright, not just against the customer, but also against the contractor. It's worth pursuing, but first I would spend the $35.00 to perfect the copyright with the Libary of Congress. Then the damages can be as much as $150,000.00 (that's not a typo).

If the posting is not your original work, then you have no claim. While architectural plans can be copyrighted under the Architectural Works Copyright Protection Act, it's doubtful that a bath design alone will have a sufficient number of "architectural elements" for the Library of Congress to accept it as an architectural work subject to copyright.

We do all of our designs for free but with the proviso that if the design is used in any manner to build the design or any significant element of the design, then the customer owes us our customary design fee.

If you will send your e-mail address to jime@starcraftcustombuilders.com, I will send you the legal forms we use. They are simple and non-threatening but effective.

Charge a fair price for your design work and then take it off the cost of the job if they decide to have you do the work. Then you're covered no matter what.

We also charge for our designs. We give clients a "ballpark" number for their projects and do not go any further without charging for a written estimate and/or a design fee. We have had this problem. If they pay for the plans, it is rightfully theirs and are free to shop around with it, but at least we got paid for the work we put into it.