Appointment of Professional Consultant to provide services to a home owner (B151)

Who can use this appointment ?  

As well as a home owner,   any business or organisation  can benefit from this user-friendly appointment of a professional consultant for a building or engineering project.  You can use it for an architect, engineer or landscape consultant, among others.

What is this  appointment letter for ?

This four page letter sets out the terms on which consultant provide the services. While less than four pages, it covers much the same ground as far longer, more formal looking appointments. The letter will ask the consultant  to countersign and return a copy. A schedule to the letter will contain details of the service; usually the consultant will provide these when submitting a proposal.

This document was originally prepared in collaboration with Self-Build Zone, who arrange insurance for self-builders.

What are the main issues?

Certainty.  The main issue for a client is certainty – both with respect to the services that that will be provided and how much they will cost.

Payment.  As for payment, our form follows the general construction law principles with regular payments and the right to withhold money if the client is dissatisfied with any invoice.

General duties.  The Consultant agrees to perform various duties including providing regular reports and coordinating services with others working on the project.

Changes. The parties will agree these in advance   and the consultant will provide an estimate for approval

Copyright.  Consultants, in particular architects, want to retain copyright in their designs, and will give a licence to the client to use those designs.  Our appointment covers this and the consultant agrees to maintain professional indemnity insurance.

Termination.  The  client will have the right to terminate on, say, 7 days’ notice at any time, not least because the appointment may be made before planning consent is obtained. If that is delayed or refused, the client needs to bring the appointment to an end.  Either party can terminate if the other commits a breach of contract.

What detailed terms does the appointment letter  contain?

The main points cover:

In addition, a Schedule will contain details of the project, scope of services and fees.

We have general guidance on issues that need to be considered in the contracts for a building project, see our free document Guidance Notes for a Home Builder Z165.

For more information, see our Explanatory Notes which you will receive when you download the document from our website.

You can find  information on signing documents on our Contract Signing page

When I download the document, can I change it and/or use it more than once?

Yes, all ContractStore’s templates are in MS Word and you can use the contract on more than one project. For more information, watch the video on this page of our website or see our FAQs

Legal support

ContractStore supplies templates and is not a law firm.  But experienced lawyers write all our templates, so we can arrange legal assistance for customers who need special terms in one of our documents or a bespoke template. . For more information see our Legal Services page.  For more information see our Legal Services page.

Contract Author – Giles Dixon

And if you want to contact us see our Contacts page.