In a concurring opinion, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal recently affirmed disciplinary action taken by Florida’s Board of Architecture against a Venezuelan architect who did not have a Florida architect’s license, but was nonetheless using the term “architect” on his website.
Feldman v. Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, a Venezuelan architect, with 35 years of experience, was disciplined by Florida’s Board of Architecture for using the word “architect” on his websites. The architect argued that he was entitled to provide architectural services under 481.229(1)(b), Florida Statutes, which states:
(1) No person shall be required to qualify as an architect in order to make plans and specifications for, or supervise the erection, enlargement, or alteration of: . . . (b) Any one-family or two-family residence building, townhouse, or domestic outbuilding appurtenant to any one-family or two-family residence, regardless of cost[.]
Both the Board and the First District Court of Appeal rejected this argument, finding that the section of the statute relied on by the architect allowed certain work to be done without an architect’s license, but did not convert that type of work into architectural work or the performer of that work into an architect.
Notably, the court went on to note that while the architect might have a First Amendment right to advertise that he is in fact a licensed architect in Venezuela and has extensive experience under that license, and that such experience would be valuable for consumers to know even when hiring him to perform work for which an architect’s license is not required in Florida, the issue was not preserve or presented appropriately on appeal. Accordingly, the court could not address it more fully.
Florida’s statute governing architects has several key restrictions on what those without a license can and cannot do and how they can advertise those services. It is critical that anyone doing work as an architect, or even just as a draftsman or designer, pay close attention to what those restrictions are and how best to comply with them in all forms of advertising, including websites and social media.