Good morning James Spanola,
All state licensing laws and municipal filing applications and permits or sign-offs are different. Many states have what are called "Rules and/or Regulations for the (Higher Professions - Architecture is one in NYS) Professions.
I am godsmacked with the limit of the Practice Act in California only requiring the Architect's inspection at Substantial Completion and Sign-off. That shows a State Legislature not influenced by lawyers, ir their are different laws for inspection by other professionals. However, that will not save the architect from the issues below.
Many Municipal Filings, Requests for Inspection, Sign-offs require the Architect's seal and or signature. Many have the attestsation that the architect attests that the project was constructed in accordance with all applicable and governing (read Federal, State, municipal laws and regulations (read ADA, Fair Housing Act-FHA ANSI).
In the long list of items that this expert design professional has witnessed in the exhibited claims, responses to Affidavits, depositions and testimony towards settlement, arbitration, judge and jury trials is the claim that a design professional only contracted for design services, or limited construction observation will not protect that Architect from the claim of "Failure to meet or follow the "Standard of Care". So common is trerm that it's acronym is SOC.
The Standard of Care is a legal term accepted across all professions, created in case law and in architecture is basically claimed as defining: "what services and observations that a reasonable architect, on a similar project, would performed (to a client, agency, or to protect the public Health and Safety).
We all know what mistakes we have caught that would have been covered up or unknown if we had not been in the site before "Substantial Completion"
If you think the Standard of Care would be difficult to explain to an uniformed finder of fact, an arbiter or tribunal, or a jury; it is even more difficult to differentiate between Substantial Completion or Project Completion and sign-off.
Douglas Korves AIA Expert Architect.