Owner's representation

For site supervision yes, for representing the client's interests no. In work stage 8 the designing architect supervises the execution of their own design; where a defect goes back to a design error, it is assessed by the person who caused it.

That is no reproach to the profession but a question of roles. The Federal Court of Justice demands heightened attention in site supervision when construction follows someone else's design (judgment of 6 July 2000, VII ZR 82/98). The Higher Regional Court of Hamm also requires the architect in work stage 8 to check whether the specialist engineers actually carry out their site supervision (order of 16 March 2021, 24 U 101/20). These interfaces are where the expensive gaps arise.

Negotiating, awarding and owning the contract is the client's job; the architect prepares and assists in procurement (HOAI work stages 6 and 7). We provide this second perspective, as the client's representative, not as reviewer of our own design.

On awarding the design: General planner or individual planners?

Yes, particularly then. The general contractor is a contracting party, not a representative. The lump sum covers only what the specification defines; variations are its right under sections 650b and 650c BGB and section 2 VOB/B. AHO booklet no. 9 puts the project control fee under a GC award at 87 to 89 per cent of the basic fee: control shifts to contract, variations and schedule.

We review the specification before it becomes a contract. The comparison in detail: General contractor or separate trades?

As a percentage of eligible cost, as a fixed fee per project stage or by time; there is no binding fee scale. The fee table of AHO booklet no. 9 (6th edition, May 2025) gives 3.3 per cent for project control at 15 million and around 2 per cent at 50 million euros; project leadership is remunerated separately by time. A full mandate therefore sits in the mid single-digit percentage range.

We set out this relationship before any appointment. Table, charge rates and worked example: What does an owner's representative cost?

The guiding question is simple: does a project already exist? If not, it is created in fee development. If it does, owner's representation and project management see to it that it is built as intended. Decision-making authority remains with the client in all three cases.

Fee development starts before a project exists. We develop someone else's site on the owner's account: establishing what is possible and economically sound, securing planning consent, steering the design. The land, the value created and the entrepreneurial risk stay with the owner — that is what separates it from a trader-developer, who buys, develops and sells on their own account. Fee development ends where owner's representation begins.

Owner's representation and project management, by contrast, overlap considerably; they usually describe the same appointment from two angles. Project management is the exercise of delegable client duties in a staff function: advising, monitoring, coordinating — and expressly without authority to issue instructions. „Owner's representation“ additionally stresses in whose interest the work is done.

Undelegable in all three cases are the original client duties: directions, specifications and selection decisions that carry legal consequences. They remain with the client unless express authority is granted.

In practical terms: we decide nothing in your place. We prepare decisions so that you can take them — with options, a recommendation and the consequences for cost and programme — and we record what was decided. In between there is a fixed reporting rhythm, and if something on site cannot wait until the next meeting, we call.

Which of the three roles fits your scheme is something we settle at the first meeting — and record, together with the decision boundaries, in the contract rather than the scope of services.

The role in detail: What does an owner's representative do?

It structures project control into five action areas and five project stages. The action areas describe what is worked on, the project stages when.

Action areas: A organisation · B quality · C cost · D schedule · E contracts (section 2, AHO booklet no. 9, 6th edition, May 2025).

Project stages: 1 project preparation · 2 design · 3 construction preparation · 4 construction · 5 close-out.

Under section 1, project control is an advisory staff function; project leadership is the decision-making line function with its own scope in section 3. We work to this profile and tailor it to the scheme rather than applying every action area by default.

It depends less on size than on the number of interfaces.

A single building with one general contractor and an experienced client needs less management than a smaller scheme with separately awarded trades, existing buildings nearby and several specialist designers. The rule of thumb that holds in practice: once more than a handful of trades are awarded separately, or the construction period exceeds a year, the coordination effort grows beyond what can be handled alongside other duties.

The second test is your own capacity. Management is not an activity for spare hours between other tasks — in the intense phases it is a full-time role.

We say at the first meeting whether a scheme carries the cost of management — and where the interfaces lie that could make it expensive.

A question of utilisation, not quality: a senior position only pays for itself once several schemes run in parallel permanently. With one or two projects, it is better to buy seniority in for the duration.

How the start works and how hiring and mandate compare: External project management for developers

As early as possible, usually with project preparation, alongside the designers' basic evaluation.

That is where the brief is defined: requirements, site, constraints, economic frame. Whatever stays vague here is corrected expensively later. Earlier still is often sensible, before site acquisition, for acquisition due diligence, feasibility and planning-law assessment.

A later start still works. Two moments pay off particularly: before procurement, because reviewing the specification decides on later variations, and as soon as schedule or cost visibly drift.

We cover all five project stages and also join running projects. Where we start depends on where you stand.

Responsibility itself cannot be transferred.

The Construction Site Ordinance is the clearest example. Where employees of several employers work on a site, a health and safety coordinator must be appointed; section 3 para. 1a BaustellV makes clear that the appointment does not relieve the client of responsibility. Where works last longer than 30 working days with more than 20 workers at once, or exceed 500 person-days, the site must be notified to the authority at least two weeks before set-up (section 2 BaustellV).

Equally non-delegable are the client's original decisions, anything that triggers legal consequences as an instruction, specification or selection. Owner's representation prepares such decisions and takes them only within a granted power of attorney.

We prepare these decisions so they can be taken in the time available, with a recommendation, reasoning and the consequences of each option.

In most cases it brings three things: a dependable status, effective defence against variations, and a realistic statement on programme.

The first step is unspectacular and often uncomfortable — an unvarnished assessment of cost, programme and contractual position. Only then can it be judged whether the problem lies in execution, in the contract, or in a design that was never finished.

What a late start does not do: it does not repair an incomplete bill of quantities retrospectively. What it does: it stops one problem becoming three.

We always begin such appointments with that assessment — the wider scope is discussed only afterwards.