Walter L Phillips, Inc.

May 14, 2015Dear [redacted]:This letter is in response to the complaint letter received by Walter L. Phillips, Inc. dated May 5, 2015. We have reviewed the complaint and reached out to [redacted] to resolve the issues that were mentioned in the complaint letter. The following is a summary of the events...

that took place to lead up to this, and a description of the steps that will be taken to address [redacted]’s concerns.[redacted] and I met in February 2014 and discussed his application. We prepared a proposal which detailed the services that would be required in order to get his Special Permit and Variance Plat prepared and processed with the County. He signed the proposal on March 6, 2014 for the first phase of the proposal, which was to prepare a House Location Survey for a flat fee of $1,200. Upon completion of this survey, we met again in June 2014, where we discussed the preparation of the Special Permit and Variance Plat. During our discussion [redacted] had mentioned that he did not want us to prepare the Special Permit Plat, but only the Variance Plat and he expressed concern about our fees being invoiced on an hourly basis. In return I reduced the cost for the preparation of the Variance Plat from $2,500 to $1,500, due to the fact that we would not be preparing the Special Permit Plat and revised the processing phase to still bill hourly but I added a note saying do not exceed $2,500 without prior approval from [redacted]. [redacted] agreed and signed the proposal on June 4, 2014; we then began preparation of the plans. We billed a total of $1,500 for the preparation of the Variance Platin June 2014 and July 2014. In August 2014, [redacted] informed me that he wanted us to now prepare the Special Permit Plat with the Variance Plat; therefore we billed additional services in August and September 2014 totaling $1,027.26, which included reimbursable costs for printing the plans. We submitted the plans to the County on September 26, 2014. After submission of the plans, the County reviewed the plans and we then received the County comments (which is a standard process), which included everything from errors on the forms prepared by [redacted], including the application form, affidavit, statement of justification and some additional notes and dimensions that the County requested to be shown on the plan prepared by Walter L. Phillips, Inc. I coordinated with the County staff to get the outstanding issues resolved accurately and assisted [redacted] on how to correct the application form, affidavit, and statement of justification correctly. On November 24, 2014 we resubmitted the plans to the County and the invoice for this work was $914.45, which was the first item that fell under the hourly billing phase for processing the plans with the County, which has a cap of $2,500, [redacted] picked up the plans to deliver them to the County. I did not hear anything back from him, as he is the agent on the application so all comments come through him first, therefore I was under the impression that the County had accepted the plan for official review. In late February, I received a call from the County reviewer and [redacted] and learned that the plans had not been submitted back in November, [redacted] had to have a few last minute additions added to the plan, which we took care of for him and coordinated with the County staff and [redacted] on the minor additions to the plan and had the plans ready for [redacted] to pick up to submit the County, We did not bill for any of the work we did in late February and early March, which could have been billed toward the processing phase of the proposal. In regards to the County reviewer having only one phone call and one email with me, I believe there were more than that but it doesn’t really matter because no invoice was billed for these months. The only outstanding invoice is from November 2014, where we revised the plan to meet the County’s comments and the amount billed is within the guidelines of what the proposal stated that [redacted] signed.In moving forward we have reached out to [redacted] and offer the following information in an effort to help resolve the issue. We propose the following:• The invoice in question, number [redacted] totaling $914.45, will be removed from our system and can be discarded. Payment of that invoice is no longer expected of [redacted]. * We have not and will not in the future invoice [redacted] for any work required to correct mistakes made by this firm. • Moving forward, for any work on our part to process [redacted]'s application through approval by Fairfax County, we will provide [redacted] with a summary of work required, billable hours required, and a fixed fee for our work. A fixed fee will be provided to [redacted] in advance of plan revisions based on County review comments, attendance at meetings, or Services in Support of the work required to amend the Statement of Justification, Application, or other items [redacted] is responsible for. • If additional work is required, future invoices will clearly indicate the work performed and correlate the work performed to the invoice amounts.We have coordinated with [redacted] and we have satisfied his concerns regarding past invoices as well as how future work and invoicing will be handled.Please feel free to call me if you have any questions of would like to discuss further.Thank you, Monica W

May 14, 2015
Dear [redacted]:This letter is in response to the complaint letter received by Walter L. Phillips, Inc. dated May 5, 2015. We have reviewed the complaint and reached out to [redacted] to resolve the issues that were mentioned in the complaint letter. The following is a summary...

of the events that took place to lead up to this, and a description of the steps that will be taken to address [redacted]’s concerns.[redacted] and I met in February 2014 and discussed his application. We prepared a proposal which detailed the services that would be required in order to get his Special Permit and Variance Plat prepared and processed with the County. He signed the proposal on March 6, 2014 for the first phase of the proposal, which was to prepare a House Location Survey for a flat fee of $1,200. Upon completion of this survey, we met again in June 2014, where we discussed the preparation of the Special Permit and Variance Plat. During our discussion [redacted] had mentioned that he did not want us to prepare the Special Permit Plat, but only the Variance Plat and he expressed concern about our fees being invoiced on an hourly basis. In return I reduced the cost for the preparation of the Variance Plat from $2,500 to $1,500, due to the fact that we would not be preparing the Special Permit Plat and revised the processing phase to still bill hourly but I added a note saying do not exceed $2,500 without prior approval from [redacted]. [redacted] agreed and signed the proposal on June 4, 2014; we then began preparation of the plans. We billed a total of $1,500 for the preparation of the Variance Platin June 2014 and July 2014. In August 2014, [redacted] informed me that he wanted us to now prepare the Special Permit Plat with the Variance Plat; therefore we billed additional services in August and September 2014 totaling $1,027.26, which included reimbursable costs for printing the plans. We submitted the plans to the County on September 26, 2014. After submission of the plans, the County reviewed the plans and we then received the County comments (which is a standard process), which included everything from errors on the forms prepared by [redacted], including the application form, affidavit, statement of justification and some additional notes and dimensions that the County requested to be shown on the plan prepared by Walter L. Phillips, Inc. I coordinated with the County staff to get the outstanding issues resolved accurately and assisted [redacted] on how to correct the application form, affidavit, and statement of justification correctly. On November 24, 2014 we resubmitted the plans to the County and the invoice for this work was $914.45, which was the first item that fell under the hourly billing phase for processing the plans with the County, which has a cap of $2,500, [redacted] picked up the plans to deliver them to the County. I did not hear anything back from him, as he is the agent on the application so all comments come through him first, therefore I was under the impression that the County had accepted the plan for official review. In late February, I received a call from the County reviewer and [redacted] and learned that the plans had not been submitted back in November, [redacted] had to have a few last minute additions added to the plan, which we took care of for him and coordinated with the County staff and [redacted] on the minor additions to the plan and had the plans ready for [redacted] to pick up to submit the County, We did not bill for any of the work we did in late February and early March, which could have been billed toward the processing phase of the proposal. In regards to the County reviewer having only one phone call and one email with me, I believe there were more than that but it doesn’t really matter because no invoice was billed for these months. The only outstanding invoice is from November 2014, where we revised the plan to meet the County’s comments and the amount billed is within the guidelines of what the proposal stated that [redacted] signed.In moving forward we have reached out to [redacted] and offer the following information in an effort to help resolve the issue. We propose the following:• The invoice in question, number [redacted] totaling $914.45, will be removed from our system and can be discarded. Payment of that invoice is no longer expected of [redacted]. * We have not and will not in the future invoice [redacted] for any work required to correct mistakes made by this firm.
• Moving forward, for any work on our part to process [redacted]'s application through approval by Fairfax County, we will provide [redacted] with a summary of work required, billable hours required, and a fixed fee for our work. A fixed fee will be provided to [redacted] in advance of plan revisions based on County review comments, attendance at meetings, or Services in Support of the work required to amend the Statement of Justification, Application, or other items [redacted] is responsible for.
• If additional work is required, future invoices will clearly indicate the work performed and correlate the work performed to the invoice amounts.
We have coordinated with [redacted] and we have satisfied his concerns regarding past invoices as well as how future work and invoicing will be handled.Please feel free to call me if you have any questions of would like to discuss further.
Thank you,
Monica W