So sorry to those that joined the workshop today, I lost connectivity as I was trying to clarify an answer during Q and A.
We were discussing a hypothetical situation where an architect was being paid on a percentage basis and during the end of the construction document phase the estimate comes in below the owners initial budget. What happens if the new estimate is so low that it drastically changes the architects overall fee (due to the fee being a percentage of the cost of work) that the architect has already been paid more than the new fee.
My first thought on this is that its highly unlikely that the cost estimate would change so drastically that this scenario could actually happen. The AHPP has a fee table on page 649 that shows 80-85 % of the design fee is structured before construction administration and this is including the bidding and negotiation. So in our scenario we were talking about still being in the construction document phase so it might be more accurate to assume no more than 75% of our fee has been paid. If this was originally a $100,000 construction budget that would mean the estimate would have to be at least $25,000 lower than originally estimate to mean we have already been paid our new fee based on the construction cost. A 25% discrepancy between estimates in the construction document phase is pretty significant and since you haven’t started bidding yet, I would assume that would cause some redesign work to meet the owners initial agreed upon budget of $100,000.