I am thinking of having homeowners sign a contract when they commission a design. Does anyone have a sample contract they would be willing to share? If you would rather not share it here, I could provide my email.
Just curious why you want a contract? Have you been stiffed on payment? I know contracts are good, but I don't do them for designs. It's not worth it to take someone to court for a $900 design, or a $500 design for that matter. Most of my residential designs don't run more than that anyway.
I use a design contract to help me expediate design work as much as I do to ensure payment. The worst thing is to have a client who does nothing to help you finish up the project. It is easy to get hampered by endless revisions, if you don't control that in a contract.
I use a carrot and stick approach that works very well. I lay out the meetings and revisions in the contract with a flat price making it very clear that anything outside of that is going to be billed hourly. I show my hourly rates in the Appendix. This makes people make darn sure that I have the information that I need to do the project and that they are very thorough when it comes to telling me what they want out of the revision (yes, only one revision). It is like clockwork - they never go outside of the contract and the project time line is in my control.
The biggest reason to have a contact is so that you have a defined set of conditions that make it clear when you are done. If you don't, it is more or less up to the client to decide when they are done with you.
It's all about setting expectations. My scope of work section details exactly what part of the yard I'm designing, and what elements are going in there. When I'm doing master plans, the garage or screen porch or other structure may be years in the future, and they don't want to pay me to design those just yet. So I'll spell out "... to include the footprint and location ONLY of a planned three-car garage" or whatever.
I also spell out exactly what the deliverables are. You'll get a black and white plan-view drawing to a specified minimum scale, with these elements called out in plan. If I'm providing additional materials (plant spec photos, elevation drawings, 3D models) those are also spelled out. I'd hate for someone to withhold payment because they felt like they should also get one of those crappy modified photographs of what their house will look like in ten years.
I'm also very clear in the exclusions that the price doesn't include the installation or any time on site to lay the project out, oversee it, etc. Like agla mentions, I spell out what's included for revisions, as well as the cost of revisions above and beyond.
Any time I've had a problem with a client, it's been because our expectations didn't align. That's the number one reason I'm so detailed in my design agreements.
If there is any doubt of why a contract is needed, the earlier posts says it all. I agree whole hearty with Dave and Alga and could not have said it better. The customers who want to be dishonest and not pay you, do not give a damn about any contract and will cheat you anyway. But to spell out the responsibilty of the designer and the expectations of the homeowner is where the contract really is important.
To many contractors in my area work without a contract be it designing or installation projects, and in my area if you are licensed, you MUST have a contract, that is the law. Not only is a contract necessary for the orginial work, but any change orders are supposed to be signed before any work is to be done.
The following is from Wikipedia : "In law, a contract is a binding legal agreement that is enforceable in a court of law.[1] That is to say, a contract is an exchange of promises for the breach of which the law will provide a remedy. As long as the good or service provided is legal, any oral agreement between two parties can constitute a binding legal contract. The practical limitation to this, however, is that only parties to a written agreement have material evidence (the written contract itself) to prove the actual terms uttered at the time the agreement was struck."
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