GRAVITY ARCHITECTS

I am disappointed that I didn't follow my initial instincts about Chris. At first, Chris comes across as confident but that confidence later turned to arrogance. We had Chris as our 203k consultant and as our architect for a renovation loan. Chris sold us for the job saying that he was the only 203k consultant in the area that was also an architect. He also said that he was so good that when submitting plans to the city, we wouldn't hear about any revisions and it would never be an issue. Both of these things turned out to be untrue. We ended up needing revisions to our plans in order to be compliant with the city. Chris would not do the work unless he got paid another $1500 (on top of the $3400 he was already paid). I have since talked to multiple architects and they have commented that this is unusual. When you pay someone upfront to handle the permitting process, they are expected to follow through with it. It is not the client's responsibility when the city says there is an issue with the plans. The architect is supposed to be the expert. When talking with Chris about the issue, he was extremely defensive and arrogant. Chris would not guarantee that the additional $1500 would cover any future revisions asked for by the city and he took offense that I even asked. The contract you sign with him is vague and doesn't address this situation. He also kept saying that there seemed to be a mix up with the city and that he was "tempted" to go down and talk to the city to get things straightened out, but Chris would not do this without being paid first. Needless to say since Chris would not stand behind his work, we fired him as our 203k consultant and our architect. When we were asking around to find a new consultant and architect, we found out that Chris has a reputation for being difficult to work with. Other 203k consultants said that this wasn't the first time they were being asked to take over a project from Chris, and the other architects I talked to said our expectations about the plans were reasonable. I even sent our plans to another architect and they said his work was sloppy and unprofessional. Shop around. There are plenty of other options out there.