A Pennsylvania trial court has found in favor of the owners of a residential construction project who sued their builder for failing to comply with the Architects Licensure Law, rendering the project’s contract void and signaling that failure to expressly name the licensed architect overseeing the project in the contract will violate the statute.

Plaintiffs William and Lynda Sinclair (the “Sinclairs”) hired defendant Marco Polo Real Estate Inc. (“Marco Polo”) to design and build a new home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. While the agreed-upon budget was $2,000,000, the project cost ballooned to close to $7,000,000 over the course of a year. The Sinclairs alleged that during this time, Marco Polo failed to inform them of the status of the project, did not execute proper change orders as required by the contract, and attempted to apply for permits without the necessary documents, which caused additional costs.

According to the Complaint, the Sinclairs have paid Marco Polo $248,598 and are seeking to recover for expenses and delays under their breach of contract claim, one of three causes of action alleged in the Complaint.

Their declaratory judgment claim, however, sought to void the contract completely because of the agreement’s alleged failure to comply with the Architects Licensure Law, 63 P.S. § 34.508(9)(iv) (renumbered from 63 P.S. § 34.15, which is used in the Complaint). The law states that, “the contract between the design-build entity and the client shall set forth the name of the architectural firm which will be contractually responsible to the design-build entity for providing architectural services.” Here, the Sinclairs argued that the contract never expressly stated the name of a licensed architect to oversee the project and therefore violates the statute. A contract that violates a statute “is illegal and will not be enforced,” citing to Rittenhouse v. Barclay White Inc., 625 A. 2d 1208, 1211 (Pa. Super. 1993).

Marco Polo, on the other hand, argued that the claim was disingenuous because Marco Polo did engage an architect who met with the Sinclairs on several occasions to discuss the plans, and that firm properly signed and sealed all of the plans submitted to the township.

This was not enough to convince the court that Marco Polo had satisfied the Architects Licensure Law. In a one-page order following oral argument, the trial court in April 2025 sided with the Sinclairs and granted their motion for declaratory judgment, stating that the contract is void because it fails to set forth the name of the architectural firm overseeing the project.

Defendants asked the trial court to reconsider its decision, but that motion was denied. Defendants then appealed to the Superior Court, Pennsylvania’s intermediate court of appeals; however, the appeal was quashed by the court because two claims related to money damages remained at the trial court level, including the outstanding breach of contract claim and a request for an accounting of all invoices related to payments made by plaintiffs to defendants. Under the Pennsylvania Rules of Appellate Procedure and Pennsylvania case law, an order that merely narrows the scope of litigation and that does not resolve the entirety of the parties’ eligibility for declaratory relief is interlocutory, and therefore not immediately appealable because it is not a final order disposing of all claims and parties. See Pa. R. A. P. 341(b); Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Ass’n Ins. Co. v. Johnson Matthey, Inc., 188 A.3d 296, 400 (Pa. 2018).

As of late October, the matter was still pending in the Bucks County Court of Common Pleas.

Companies that are not licensed architectural firms but provide design-build services should take care to comply with the practices outlined in 63 P.S. § 34.508(9)(i) to avoid the cautionary tale described here. Those practices, as more fully described in the statute, include: 1) independently contract with a licensed architectural firm to be responsible for all material aspects of the practice of architecture on the project; 2) provide the client a written disclosure stating that an architect will be engaged and contractually responsible to the design-build entity; 3) agree that the architect will have direct supervision of the architectural work; and 4) expressly state the name of the architectural firm that will be responsible to the design-build entity for providing architectural services on the project.