Who Draws the Plans? When Your HOA Project Needs an Engineer or Architect — and When It Doesn't
Your roofing contractor just offered to "take care of the specs" for free. That free favor might be the most expensive line item on the whole project.
I've written before about apples-to-oranges bids and change orders that eat contingency funds. Here's the uncomfortable truth: most of those problems are born before the first bid ever goes out — at the moment the board decides who defines the technical scope. Let's talk about when that person should be an independent design professional, and when it doesn't need to be.
1. The Contractor-Designed Project Trap
When the company bidding the work also writes the scope, the scope serves the bidder. That's not an accusation of bad faith — it's just incentives. A contractor writing their own spec will naturally describe the work the way they prefer to build it, with the products they get the best pricing on, and with the gray areas left conveniently gray. Those gray areas become change orders later. And when three contractors each write their own scope, you get three proposals describing three different projects. Bid leveling becomes guesswork.
The fix: For significant projects, the scope should come from someone whose paycheck doesn't depend on winning the construction contract.
2. Projects That Need Stamped Drawings
Some projects legally or practically require a licensed engineer or architect. A quick litmus test — if your project touches any of these, get a design professional involved before you solicit a single bid:
Structural repairs — balconies, decks, stairs, foundations, retaining walls
Drainage and grading changes
Anything that triggers a building permit requiring sealed drawings
Building envelope work where water intrusion is the underlying problem
On these projects, stamped drawings aren't overhead. They're the difference between fixing the problem and repainting over it.
3. Projects That Usually Don't
Now the other side, because I'm not here to sell you engineering you don't need. Like-for-like repainting, re-roofing installed to the manufacturer's published specification, fence replacement, asphalt seal coating — these can typically be bid from a well-written scope of work without sealed drawings. The key phrase is well-written scope: even simple projects need one document that every bidder prices against. It just doesn't always need a professional stamp.
4. What a Design Professional Actually Delivers
Boards sometimes see design fees as money that doesn't buy anything physical. Here's what it actually buys:
One scope, every bidder. Plans and specs make every proposal apples-to-apples — bid leveling finally works the way it should.
Permit-ready documents. No mid-project scramble when the building department asks for sealed drawings.
A neutral referee. When a dispute arises about whether work meets the requirement, the answer is on paper, written by someone who isn't a party to the construction contract.
On a mid-six-figure project, design fees typically run a small fraction of what a single scope dispute or structural surprise costs.
5. How to Hire One
Same playbook I recommended for color selection: keep the decision group small. A committee of two or three requests proposals from two or three firms. When you evaluate them, verify that their HOA or multifamily experience is real — ask for association references specifically, not just commercial ones. Working for a volunteer board inside an occupied community is its own skill, and firms that have it will show you quickly.
The Bigger Point
Every dollar of clarity you buy before bidding saves several dollars of confusion after signing. The question isn't whether your project will have a scope — it's whether that scope will be written by someone working for you.
Planning a fall or winter project? July is exactly when this decision needs to happen — design and permitting take longer than boards expect. If you'd like a one-page "Does My Project Need a Design Professional?" decision checklist, comment below or send me a DM and I'll share it.
And tell me: what's a project where drawings would have saved your board money?
Next up: living in a construction zone — site logistics and safety when the project is in residents' front yards.
Sean Davis, PMP | Civil Engineer | Current HOA Board Member (12 years) | DHA Construction Management | Broomfield, CO
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