Custom Residential Architects Network

A local jurisdiction in California is requiring us to sign a letter transferring all ownership rights of our documents to the city. Weirder still, in that letter, they state they reserve the right to reproduce and disseminate our work to the public, apparently with no notice to us. Here is the text of the letter: 

"This letter acknowledges that following acceptance by the City, all submitted construction drawings and technical reports accepted by the City for this project, shall become the property of the City.  Once accepted, these plans may be freely used, reproduced or distributed by the City to the public or other agencies, as the City may deem appropriate."

Has anyone else had to sign this type of letter? I've never seen this before. This would open up a lot of weird liability issues, not to mention that our work is our IP. The City neither paid for its creation nor should they need ownership of it. 

Ken

I just got a clarification from the City that they want this form from everyone except the architect. Apparently they are only concerned with grading and site engineering, which makes more sense. I had tried to clarify this a couple of times and kept getting the same response that we needed to sign the form. 

A local jurisdiction in California is requiring us to sign a letter transferring all ownership rights of our documents to the city. Weirder still, in that letter, they state they reserve the right to reproduce and disseminate our work to the public, apparently with no notice to us. Here is the text of the letter: 

"This letter acknowledges that following acceptance by the City, all submitted construction drawings and technical reports accepted by the City for this project, shall become the property of the City.  Once accepted, these plans may be freely used, reproduced or distributed by the City to the public or other agencies, as the City may deem appropriate."

Has anyone else had to sign this type of letter? I've never seen this before. This would open up a lot of weird liability issues, not to mention that our work is our IP. The City neither paid for its creation nor should they need ownership of it. 

Ken

I just got a clarification from the City that they want this form from everyone except the architect. Apparently they are only concerned with grading and site engineering, which makes more sense. I had tried to clarify this a couple of times and kept getting the same response that we needed to sign the form. 

A local jurisdiction in California is requiring us to sign a letter transferring all ownership rights of our documents to the city. Weirder still, in that letter, they state they reserve the right to reproduce and disseminate our work to the public, apparently with no notice to us. Here is the text of the letter: 

"This letter acknowledges that following acceptance by the City, all submitted construction drawings and technical reports accepted by the City for this project, shall become the property of the City.  Once accepted, these plans may be freely used, reproduced or distributed by the City to the public or other agencies, as the City may deem appropriate."

Has anyone else had to sign this type of letter? I've never seen this before. This would open up a lot of weird liability issues, not to mention that our work is our IP. The City neither paid for its creation nor should they need ownership of it. 

Ken